


Music

by fanfictionandcats



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 04:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 43,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1844884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanfictionandcats/pseuds/fanfictionandcats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Nothing's ever stood out the way he has, with his dark hair and tanned skin and his sharp words and mood swings but underneath them so much more hiding beneath the surface, so much ferocity and ambition and love. / She is like the sun through the trees, she is honey and yellow and light. And her lips are softer than wool and petals of flowers and anything he has ever experienced."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I had this fic posted on fanfiction.net for a while so I thought I'd post it here too.

He hates her, and she knows it.

Every time he and Katniss meet her at the back door of her house to sell her another pint of strawberries, she can see him hate her a little bit more. The way he never actually enters inside, opting to stay standing on the back stairs. The way he looks at the outside of her house. The way he looks like he can't wait to leave, and after she drops the money in his hands, he all but runs.

She symbolizes everything he thinks is wrong. With the government, with money, with power. Eyes full of contempt when he looks at her. And she knows it.

She sees him at school sometimes, when he comes over at lunch to talk to Katniss. It's always brief, always basically one-word conversations. He doesn't look at her, doesn't acknowledge her in the least. She also sometimes sees him in the halls, but he always stares blankly ahead, on a clear path that won't be deterred.

She wishes he would  _see_  her.

Because she can't help but want him, in an entirely improper way. His messy dark hair and his rough looking skin and eyes like the moon and stars at night. He is rough, strong, broad-shouldered, and dark... in a way that none of the boys from town (or the boys her father would allow her to see) aren't.

She doesn't know him. But she wants to.

* * *

One Saturday, Gale and Katniss arrives a little earlier than usual for a trade, blueberries this time. He hears music coming from inside the large, extravagant house. It's different from the music usually played around the Seam. That is frantic and lively, a distraction, a brief moment of grinning-happiness.

He likes this music, though, in an entirely different way. It's balanced and nimble, quiet but strong. Not the same kind of lively feeling, but a content calm.

"What's that music?" He asks. He blurts it out quickly.

"Madge, probably." Katniss says gruffly, before knocking on the back door. The startling use of her name makes Gale stop for a minute.

The music stops abruptly, jerking him out of the moment and remembering where he was. He straightens up a little, collecting himself.

The door opens, and Madge is standing there in a pink sundress.

His face falls into the stoic, indifferent expression he uses when he sees her.

They make their trade, she hands Katniss the money, and Katniss turns away down the stairs. He moves to follow her, but impulsively looks over his shoulder back to the house. She is leaning against a half-shut door, impossibly proper and relaxed all at the same time, staring after him with her sky-blue eyes.

They are different from the hardened, cold, blank eyes often seen in the Seam. They look kind and hopeful and warm, maybe…

A weight settles in his chest, and his eyes quickly snap back in front of him as he shoves his hands into his pockets and continues after Katniss. He doesn't look back again.

* * *

She shuts the door, letting herself fall back against the wood and close her eyes. She holds her breath for a minute, because right now that moment is all hers and there's nothing else to taint it. She won't let it go, at least for a while.

She knows it doesn't mean anything. Even though no one talks about it, there's an obvious bond between him and Katniss. Whether that bond is romantic or not, Madge doesn't know… but Katniss is obviously one of the few people he really cares for, and a simple glance over his shoulder is nothing compared to the affectionate looks she's only seen a couple of times.

It was only a look. But she'll take what she can get.

She smiles to herself, sliding onto the piano bench, letting her fingers rest over the white keys. She plays with her eyes closed, and the music sounds somehow happier when she plays it now.

* * *

The tune gets stuck in his head. He can only remember a few of the beginning notes, so he tries hard to remember the rest of the melody. He keeps it in his mind, so it won't slip away. It makes him think of the calmness of the meadow, on those rare days where he doesn't have to worry about traps or hunting or Rory or Vick or Posy or his mother. Those few Sundays that are just his, where he can just be alone. Away from noise, and he can just breathe.

He plays what he can remember over and over in his head until he falls asleep.

* * *

He wishes he hated her.

He did, for a while. With her new clothes and colored cheeks, always looking well-fed and well-rested. She was from  _town_ , where all the rich people congregate so they can avoid the starving Seam kids as much as they can. She was just another snobby, stuck-up princess.

He denies that he wants her. Her, with her golden hair and creamy, soft-looking pale shoulders. She always wears a sweater to school, but a few Saturdays when it's warm out she'll answer the door to pay him for whatever he's selling that Saturday, and he'll try hard not to look.

She is everything he can never have. Far off, so unattainable it hurts. And dreams are only for people who can afford them, which he most certainly can't. She is the mayor's daughter, she lives in a mansion, and gets to eat as much in a day as he strives to get his entire family for three.

What had he to give her? Nothing.

He wants to know her. But he just can't.


	2. Dancing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This chapter takes place pre-Hunger Games)

The decorations are definitely not as cheap as expected. It's sponsored by parents from town, complete with Peace Keepers chaperoning and looking over things to make sure all the students are behaving and being whoever set it up thinking that adding a few streamers and taking out the desks would make people forget that they were actually at school must have been cracked.

He hates that he's here. Suffocating in his best shirt he only wore for special occasions but his mother and Posy forced him to wear.

A school dance, basically the worst possible place to be tonight. Well, any night. He'd almost gotten out of it, before his so-called friends went and told his mother. She, insisting that he needed to spend one night acting like a teenager, would not relent until he finally gave in to attending.

But Katniss was at home with Prim, and his friends that had so vehemently insisted he attend the dance in the first place had gone off to find their dates.

So he fully intended on standing in a corner all night until it was time to go home.

He spots a table of free food, and swipes a few cookies slyly to take home for Vick and Posy. He knows Posy likes the ones with the sprinkles best.

Girls from town pass by him, wearing expensive looking colorful dresses and hair done up in elaborate braids and twists that look entirely too gaudy. They are a contrast from the girls from the Seam, wearing hand-me-down dresses and their hair mostly loose. Simply color wise, they look entirely different.

It's easy to separate who is from the Seam and who is from town. Comically so, if not only because of their wardrobe, but because they seemed to be standing on opposite sides of the room and completely segregated.

The music starts up soon. He sees his best friend Bristel grabs the hand of a girl he's been talking about for a while and join a few couples slowly drifting towards the middle of the room. People start to pair up and move as the first song starts.

He accidentally sees her. He wishes he hadn't.

She's just sitting in a chair across the room from where he stands. She's wearing a blue strapless dress, a shade lighter than the color of her eyes, rivaling the bluest sky he'd ever seen. His gaze skates over exposed skin, shoulders and collarbone, dipping down until her dress starts. A lump grows in his throat. His fingers itch to touch the smooth material of her dress so powerfully he has to shove his hands in his pockets.

He doesn't understand. There are plenty of pretty girls in attendance. Why couldn't he take his eyes off  _her_?

 

* * *

 

Her seat is in between the two divided sections of party goers (the ones from the Seam and the ones from town). She looks down at her shoes, resisting the urge to pat her hair to make sure it's still in tact.

She let Isla, her family's maid, do it for her. Not wanting to go through the normal two-hours it took some of the girls from town to get their hair done, Madge only settled for a simple bun. But it made her feel better, having someone maternal like Isla comb through her hair and put it up for her. She took a moment before she left that night to inspect her appearance, and was pleasantly surprised with the person looking back at her in the mirror. Madge was not vain by any standards, but she smiled at her reflection.

She had left her house with the idea that the dance would be a chance for the division between the Seam and the town to merge in a social event. That had obviously been a naive assumption. She knows better now, seeing as no one is venturing to even speak to anyone not from the same group.

She's surprised when she spots Gale Hawthorne leaning against the wall across the room from her. Not surprised that she saw him with all these people in the way, because she's got a sort of radar for him when he's in a room. Surprised mostly that he deigned to be here.

He looks like he's having a miserable time.

He is very handsome, though (when isn't he?). In a black button-down shirt and gray pants, his hair contrasting the vaguely put together outfit with the regular messy waves.

Even here, she resumes her role of sitting on the sidelines. She supposes she is shy, though she has never had a problem standing up for what she believed in. But besides Katniss, she didn't have any other friends. She didn't even know if Katniss really considered her a friend at all - they did sit together at lunch, but usually in companionable silence.

She doesn't expect anyone to request a dance with her, boys never paid her much attention.

But she allows herself to move a bit with the music, because it's lovely and swelling, and she can almost imagine herself dancing grandly with a mysterious stranger.

 

* * *

 

He tries again not to look over at her. But what else has he got to do? His friends have all abandoned him, and he can't go home now. He considers going and sitting out in the meadow until he's been out long enough to satisfy his mother.

There was a thick clump of couples dancing now, practically everyone in attendance (except the Peace Keepers standing in the opposite corner). Some girls shyly looked up at their partners as the boys cautiously held their hands at the girls' hips. Some were more aggressive, touchy, familiar with each other.

The couple previously dancing in front of him moves, affording him a clear visual path across the room.

He allows himself to look over at her once more, but only for a moment. Her (obnoxiously) naturally happy face's mouth is turned down at the corners. She is staring forlornly at the couples dancing by her, swaying the most miniscule amount to the music.

She looks as if she wants nothing more than for someone to ask her. She almost reminds him of Posy, in that moment, when she's sad.

He doesn't know what comes over him, but he finds himself walking across the room to where she is sitting. He threads through the dancers, moving his way around a couple he vaguely knows in his year at school, and arriving in front of Madge's seat.

He stands in front of her, and she looks a little frightened, and expectantly up at him.

"Would you like to dance?"

The question falls out of his mouth, and as he says it, he regrets it.

What is he doing over here? Talking to her? He can feel both eyes of the Seam and town staring at him.

But then she nods slightly, raising from her seat. He can't back out now. When she gives him a little half-smile, he doesn't want to.

They move into the crowd.

The music isn't the exciting, lively Seam music, nor is it the music he heard echoing out of the mayor's house's back windows. It's more of an in-between, in the way that all he really has to do is -

He really didn't think this through. He didn't realize he'd have to hold her hips. He didn't realize he'd have to be this close to her.

But before he can do anything else, her arms cautiously land on his shoulders. His hands find their way onto her hips. He's careful not to drop them too low.

 

* * *

 

She stares down at her shoes. She can't bear to look at him in the eyes, with her face being undoubtedly red. She doesn't have one clue why  _Gale Hawthorne_  asked her to dance, she's still convinced she's dreaming. She feels chokingly close to him, she wasn't ever given much physical contact as a kid or as a teenager. This is the closest she's ever been to any boy... ever. And the feeling of his seemingly red-hot hands on her hips make her feel a way that's delicious and frightening all at once.

She's surprised at how in tune with the music he is. Not that he ever struck her as clumsy (quite the opposite, actually), but he moves perfectly in beat with her, as if they are one person dancing.

She stares at his chest. She can't seem to find the nerve to look up at him quite yet. She's almost afraid that once she does he'll vanish. His black button-down shirt is more threadbare than she had seen, but up close it's obvious that the shirt's definitely thinning.

Slowly, finding her courage, she inches her arms up so that they're more around his neck than resting on his shoulders. She hopes they feel lazy, when really her knees are locked so tight it's a miracle she's still standing up.

She sees over his left shoulder that she's being stared at by a girl with short brown hair. She's got some dirt on her cheek, and it's evident that she's from the Seam. The girl glares unabashedly at her, making Madge look back down at her shoes.

 

* * *

 

He looks at her blond hair. He wonders what it would feel like wound around his fingers.

This was a terrible idea. He can't believe he got himself into something so dangerous. There are Peace Keepers here. What if they see? They could tell the mayor. He'd be watched closely, wouldn't be able to get off to the woods, which would mean no food to put on the table.

But he can't seem to move away. He likes the tentative feeling of her arms around his neck. He can't bring himself to look at her in the eye, though he wants to see them up close.

She smells nice. Like clean laundry and fresh bread, and a little like peaches in the summer.

He squeezes his eyes shut and tries not to let himself fall into her.

 

* * *

 

The night winds down and comes to an end. The music stops and they step away from each other. They release hands.

She wishes she didn't have to stop holding him. Her hips feel tingly from where his hands were previously planted.

They both walk out of the school, down the steps and into the night. She feels awkward - is he going to leave now? are they going to go their separate ways? should she say goodbye? will he ever talk to her again?

"I'll walk you home." He says quietly.

It sounds gentlemanly and chivalrous. She feels her heart soar, she's not ready for this night to end yet. So she replies, "Ok. Thanks."

They walk in silence for a while, towards town and her home. She realizes that she could have just walked home with everyone returning to town, but there are only a few people far up the road, and she likes the company she has much more.

She watches him out of the corner of her eye. He's walks on the uneven ground effortlessly, looking straight ahead of him. The black of the night envelopes them, and she strangely doesn't feel the need to make conversation. It is comfortable between them, a dark blue kind of silence.

She revels in the turn events her night has taken. Here she is, walking home from a school dance with Gale Hawthorne. The handsome, mysterious, dark boy from the Seam.

She asks because she can't stand to hold it in anymore. "Why did you ask me to dance?"

He looks startled, but she can't tell if it's by her voice interrupting the long stretch of silence or the question itself. It's a minute before he responds with, "You looked like you wanted to dance."

She holds her breath for a moment, mind chewing on his words. The statement was so simple, so obvious. Because she wanted to dance, he danced with her.

She doesn't say anything back, but holds back her grin from widening in the darkness.

The road isn't nearly long enough, and she's at her door far too soon. He stands uncomfortably at the bottom of the stairs to her house in the porch light. She turns as she steps up a few steps, leaning on the railing. It's the same position as when he's here on Saturdays. She relishes the fact that he's not here now to sell her strawberries, but for a different reason.

"Thanks Gale. You know, for walking me home. And for tonight." She says shakily. She's worried it might sound too much like the end of date. He might be freaked out. She hopes he isn't, and she studies him carefully.

His face stays the same, except for the corner of his mouth, that raises only the tiniest bit.

"Goodnight, Madge." He says quietly. He turns and walks away from her house. She watches him until she can't make him out anymore in the dark.

It's the first time he's ever said her name. Madge is a rather plain and ugly name, but coming off his lips, it's beautiful. The way he spoke it was like a secret, something personal and all hers. She lets it ring in her ears.

"Goodnight." She whispers after him.

She enters the house silently, taking off her shoes. The lights are already off. As her bare feet pad up the stairs to her room, she repeats his voice over and over to herself.

_Goodnight, Madge._

 


	3. Golden

 

He feels her eyes on him as he leans against the door frame, laughing hollowly at something one of his friends said. He has no lunch today, and his friends have that in common. There's no reason to sit among the kids consuming their various foods, so they elect to just stand away from those eating.

But even though Thom is telling an involved story, he can't pay attention to it. He tries to, focuses hard, but the words coming out of Thom's mouth are just words. They run together, yet at the same time stay disjointed in his head.

All he can feel is her gaze. He made the mistake of looking over there out of the corner of his eye, seeing that she was picking at her food but looking at him blankly. Well, not really blankly. Her eyes were never really blank.

That was the thing about her. She would have been a guarded, if not for her eyes. They told every single emotion she was feeling, every thought that passed through her head. And looking at her eyes, you could read her like an open book.

He is a little angry that she has the audacity to pick at her food when he would have gladly scarfed it down. His traps have not been so plentiful lately, spring is taking its sweet time to come around this year. He knows once the weather finally turned he'll have more, but until then he has to make due with what he could obtain as of now. Which isn't much.

He considers her careless wasting of good food sourly. He turns around, so he can't see her even out of the corner of his eye.

He resolves to take up Tessa's offer to go over to the slag heap tomorrow.

 

* * *

 

She realizes that nothing is going to happen between them.

She thought... well, maybe she just  _wished_ they would have at least become sort of friends after he said goodbye to her that night.

But she's obviously mistaken. She too often is with things like this.

She can't say it doesn't hurt her feelings when she sees him talking -  _flirting -_ with other girls, and taking them to a place in the Seam called "the slag heap" (even the name makes her shudder). It does. But she supposes it always did, so what's the difference now? All he did was dance with her for one night and walk her home. That was it.

So she decides that she'll just get through school, get good grades for her father, eat lunch in silence, and then run home. Run home to seek solace in the score. And she'll play and play until her parents tear her away from it, and she'll escape through the music.

To where she escapes, she can't put a name on. It's a wordless, nameless place. It does not exist in any of the Districts. It is just the woods, forever and ever. Lush, green, silent woods... but filled with the music. The music of content souls slipping through the leaves on the trees, dancing on the soft, brown earth. There is sunlight, bluebirds fly, and there is beauty.

She is not Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter. She does not live in District 12, the coal mining district. Her mother does not have excruciating headaches or night terrors. Her father does not have permanent circles under his eyes from too many late nights and stress. She is not horribly shy, she is not a loner. She is not trapped in the all-around terrible world she wakes up to every morning. She is not so painfully alone that it eats at the corners of her a little more every day, threatening to swallow her up. She is not crying out into the dark with no answer.

 

* * *

 

He shows up at her door step again on Saturday. She does not confuse it with an amicable visit, for he has made it clear they are not friends.

But this time he is not standing behind Katniss, refusing to meet her eyes. He is alone.

He looks tired and exasperated, but just as handsome as the night he stood in that very same spot and smiled at her. His hair is messier than usual, but she finds it pleasant to look at.

She immediately wishes she had ran a brush through her hair before this, but she'd been playing and forgotten to check her appearance. Serves her right.

"Hello."

"Hello." He says gruffly. He holds out a pale of strawberries, and she takes it quickly.

"Where is Katniss?"

"Sick." He says shortly. He looks at her expectantly.

She collects herself.

"Oh! Sorry, hold on, give me just one second." She says, running through her house and putting down the strawberries on the kitchen counter. She fishes in the jar across the table for enough money. She runs back outside, but stops at checks her hair quickly in the mirror. It's messy, but not as messy as she thought. There's nothing she can do about it now.

She arrives at the back door again to find him leaning against the railing staring down at his shoes.

"Here you go." She says. She hands him the money, and his hands brushes the bottom of hers as she drops the coins in her grasp. She resists the shiver.

He nods, and turns to leave, walking away and glancing in both directions. She watches him for a moment, then starts to close the door.

He turns back around and says something, but he's already far enough away that it's hard to make out the meaning of his mutter.

"Hmm?"

He looks at her for a minute, squinting his eyes a little in thought. Then he turns away. "Never mind."

She is about to let him walk away, before she stops him with a firm, "No, what did you say?"

She's almost shocked at her own tone. But she likes it. It is strong. He turns to her slowly. She takes in his broad shoulders blocking the sunlight from her eyes.

"I asked if that was you playing. That music before?"

"Yes." She replies meagerly.

"It was beautiful." He says, not wavering in his gaze.

"Thank you." She replies, flustered at his honest tone. It's so queerly out of character for him, Madge isn't sure what to say next. He stands for another moment, not taking his eyes off her. She offers, "Would you like to come in?"

His content expression immediately drops. She's sad to see it go. It is replaced by furrowed brows and apologizing hands.

"I don't think –"

"No one's home." She says quickly, inwardly wincing afterwards. If he's perturbed, he doesn't show it. She amends, "I mean, it would be fine. I could get an opinion on an new piece I've been working on."

A moment passes of him staring at the ground. She can tell he's deciding whether or not he's going to come in.

But then he wordlessly looks up, and does a half-shrug-half-smile. "Sure."

 

* * *

 

He stands in the back hallway, barefoot. His boots had ended up tracking mud inside, so he offered to just take them off. She beckons him inside the house, and he walks cautiously into the room.

It is an airy room with cream-colored walls. There is a large, plush looking sofa across one wall, a light beige color. The wood floors look newly polished, and on the side facing the back of the house, there are two arched open windows. In the middle of the windows, propped up against the wall, is the most exquisite piano he's ever seen. It's a rich black, with the white keys standing out. He's only ever seen pictures of pianos in books at school. He stares at it with widened eyes.

She enters the room casually. He follows.

She sits down on the bench in front of the piano. He stands in the middle of the room awkwardly, not wanting to touch anything. Everything looks like it's on display.

He feels out of place and uncomfortable.

She turns. "You can sit down." She says, smiling lightly at him. "If you want."

He stares around the room. He doesn't want to sit on the couch, for fear of having the dirt and excess coal that covers everything in the Seam on it.

Then she shifts over on the bench, and cocks her head.

Oh boy.

He doesn't know why he moves. He didn't know why he let himself agree in the first place.

He scoots onto the bench, entirely too close to her, in his opinion. Her cheeks twinge pink. She opens a book of sheet music, notes symbols that he can't read. She scans through the score briefly before bringing her hands up and resting them gently on the instrument. They are soft and pale.

Her fingers move across the keys gracefully. Music floats out of the grand instrument, filling his ears with the melody that he'd been holding onto for weeks. It's full and empty all at the same time.

He closes his eyes instinctively. The elegant progression of notes make him calm, his muscles relax, and he breathes deeply.

But before long the melody stops. When he opens his eyes, Madge takes her hands off the piano and into her lap. She looks at him curiously.

He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out at first.

"You play good." He clears his throat before adding uncomfortably, "I mean, you're talented. It was nice."

She smiles, looking down bashfully at her hands folded in her lap. She whispers, "Thank you."

He lets his gaze wander to her hair. Prim and Katniss' mother have blond hair, but while their hair is just sort of yellow-y, hers looks like soft spun gold. She shines, in a way. She is golden, everything about her is golden.

His eyes skate over her face, her eyes, her button nose, her pink lips. And he wonders, for a moment, what she would taste like.

He stands up suddenly, moving deftly away from Madge and the piano bench. "Thanks for letting me listen to you play."

She smiles, but her eyes looked puzzled. "You're welcome."

He nods once more at her, exiting the room and taking his boots with him. He leaves the house without another word.

 


	4. Reaping

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (This happens at the beginning of The Hunger Games)

Her hands smooth over the soft, pristine white material as she moves over to her dresser. She takes a silk pink ribbon out of her wood jewelry box and moving back over to a seat in front of a mirror in the corner of her room.

She sits down gingerly, collecting all her hair into her palms and lifting it up before tying the ribbon around, deftly tying it to hold all her hair tightly. She gives herself a once-over in the mirror.

She sighs, finding her appearance satisfactory. Downstairs, extra Peace Keepers brought in from the Capitol, journalists, interviewers, and camera crews are bustling around preparing for the big show today. She knows her father would want her to come downstairs as soon as she is ready, but she takes another solitary moment to sit in the silence of her room.

Her head aches, and her eyes are tired. She can never sleep the night before.

She knows her mother will not rise from bed today. She supposes it's for the best, she doesn't know what state she would be in if she did join the suffocating company of people downstairs. She finally stands up, smoothing her dress, before making the painful way down the steps.

Sure enough, Isla is cooking hurriedly in the kitchen as people in strange Capitol dress run left and right, jabbering in that pompous Capitol accent. Her father is probably in the other room, briefing the new Peace Keepers on security and such. She slides past many strange faces before she reaches the back room. To her relief, it is currently empty. She shuts the door tightly, hoping that this will signal that the room is off-limits. Even if they can take every single other inch of the house, this room is hers, and she refuses to let it be tainted.

There's a knock on the door, and she rushes to open it. It probably would be best to make it fast, as there are government officials only in the room over. She opens it, and Katniss and Gale stand in front of her, like every other Saturday.

She smiles, but Gale doesn't.

"Pretty dress," He says.

She looks at him. She is confused and uncertain to whether he is being genuine or it is a dig at her. She presses her lips together and wills herself to reply.

"Well, if I end up going to the Capitol, I want to look nice, don't I?" She says in the most sarcastic way she knows.

"You won't be going to the Capitol," replies Gale coolly. Something in her heart wilts. She watches her gaze fall on the gold pin her mother fastened on her dress.

He looks at it disdainfully, and she resists the urge to cover it with her hand. "What can you have? Five entries? I had six when I was just twelve years old."

This hits her like a kick to the chest.

She hates that he does this once more. He is kind to her, leads her to believe they are friends, just to turn around to be cold to her. He is leading her on.

Or maybe she's leading herself on, expecting things to be there that never will be. Either way, she is upset.

But she won't show it.

"That's not her fault." Katniss says.

"No, it's no one's fault. Just the way it is," Gale backtracks, glancing at Katniss. This lets her know, cruelly, that he is only saying that for Katniss' benefit.

Her face reverts to a stoic look not unlike Gale's own. She does not look at him again.

Putting the money for the berries into Katniss' hands, she says, "Good luck, Katniss."

"You, too," Katniss replies.

Madge closes the door quickly, and it's all she can do not to slam it.

 

* * *

 

Everyone in line focuses their attention on the temporary stage that is set up before the Justice Building. It holds three chairs, a podium, and two large glass balls, one for the boys and one for the girls. They glint in the sun angrily.

In the first chair is Effie Trinket, District 12's escort. She lives in the Capitol mostly, and it is obvious by her appearance. Her scary white grin, pink hair, and spring green suit are all high Capitol fashions. Next to her is the mayor. Mayor Undersee. Madge's father.

He looks over to the side, picking out his mother in the crowd of families in the roped off area. She looks at him too, giving him a reassuring smile. What really makes him feel more at ease is the fact that neither of his two brothers or his sister join him in the line. Though Rory, the eldest one, will be standing in the back of the line next year turning twelve.

The clock in the center of town strikes two. The mayor stands at the podium and begins to read the story of Panem. He's heard this story far too many times, and tunes it out as best he can. About how District Thirteen tried to rise up and was obliterated, reminding them once again how easily the Capitol can crush them if they step out of line.

"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intones the mayor. Repentance? Thanks? They were slaves! And the Games were just picking sheep for slaughter, tearing them apart, one child and family and community at a time.

Haymitch Abernathy, the only living victor 12 has, finally shows up. He's yelling about something, drunkenly, and stumbling to find his seat on the stage. The mayor looks distressed by this, as does Effie Trinket. It makes him smile, he hopes the mayor knows that he is now the laughing stock of all the districts.

He sees to Katniss in the girl's line, and she's smiling a little too. At least this reaping has a show to make them all forget about the fact that any of them could be chosen to die in a few minutes. He looks at her for another moment, thinking, what if she's picked? He can see a similar thought cross her mind as well, and they turn away.

It is the female tribute who is picked first. He can feels his hands tensing nervously as Effie Trinket plunges her claws into the glass bowl on the right.

"Primrose Everdeen!"

And all of sudden, things just stop. Only for a moment. The entire square is quiet, except for the muttering of the old and how unfair it is that such a young girl was picked. Katniss is frozen, before she finally seems to come to herself.

"Prim!" The strangled cry echoes through the square. "Prim!" She runs through the crowd that parts for her. She reaches her sister as she's about to step up, and pushes her behind her protectively.

"I volunteer!" She gasps. "I volunteer as tribute!"

Everything in Gale's body tenses up.

"Lovely!" says Effie Trinket. "But I believe there's a small matter of introducing the reaping winner and then asking for volunteers, and if one does come forth then we, um . . ." she trails off, unsure herself.

Katniss. Katniss has volunteered. Katniss has volunteered to march to her death. Katniss is going to die.

"What does it matter?" says the mayor. "Let her come forward."

And for a moment he is grateful for the mayor, for this small freedom he rewards Katniss, even if it is for -

"No, Katniss! No! You can't go!" Prim shrieks. She's crying and screaming, holding onto Katniss tightly. "No!"

He makes his way through the crowd, and no one stops him. It wouldn't matter if they did, he would have just gone right through them. He makes his way urgently to where Katniss and Prim are, next to the stairs.

"Prim, let go," Katniss says gruffly. "Let go!"

He knows it is because Katniss doesn't want to cry, doesn't want to seem weak, she is playing the game now.

He pulls Prim off Katniss, holding her little body tightly as she thrashes to get away. It hurts him, he wishes he could do the same, run to Katniss and hold her and never let her walk onto that stage. But the moment she screamed those two words, she was branded. She knew exactly what she was doing. There was nothing he could do except make things as easy for her as he could.

"Up you go, Catnip," He says, keeping his voice as steady as he can manage. He turns from her, and carries Prim to Mrs. Everdeen, who is staring blankly ahead at her eldest daughter climbing up onto the stage.

"Well, bravo! That's the spirit of the Games! What's your name?"

"Katniss Everdeen."

"I bet my buttons that was your sister. Don't want her to steal all the glory, do we? Come on, everybody! Let's give a big round of applause to our newest tribute!"

He can't believe this is happening, Prim only had  _one_ entry. He bites down hard on his lip, so hard that starts to bleed. His hands are fists.

"Look at her. Look at this one! Lots of . . . " Haymitch starts yelling drunkenly. "Spunk!"

"More than you!" he shouts, pointing directly into a camera.

The boy tribute is picked. But Gale has stopped worrying about himself and his fate. His eyes are trained on Katniss, who has a guarded, set look on her face.

Peeta Mellark, the baker's son.

The mayor finishes the dreary Treaty of Treason. Peeta and Katniss shake hands. He can't breathe. He can't think. This isn't a dream. It's reality, cold and hard, slapping him in the face. And she's really going to die.

Katniss turns back to face the crowd as the anthem of Panem plays.

 

* * *

 

She walks straight to Katniss. She does not cry - that would be selfish and self-indulgent, and she refuses to cry when Katniss is the one who deserves to shed tears.

She did not originally plan on giving Katniss her mother's pin. She hadn't even thought of it until she entered the Justice Building some minutes ago. But then it seemed like she had to.

Her mother had always clumsily pinned it on Madge's dress every reaping day since she was old enough to qualify for the Games. She knew it once belonged to her aunt (dead now), and her mother always said the pin would protect her.

If this was all she had to give, then she would gladly give it. She hoped it would protect Katniss too.

"They let you wear one thing from your district in the arena. One thing to remind you of home. Will you wear this?" She says, holding out the pin to Katniss. Katniss looks blankly down at it.

"Your pin?"

She does not wait, she  _can't_ wait, there's not enough time.

"Here, I'll put it on your dress, all right?" She says, pinning it on her as quickly as her trembling hands can. She feels tears coming, because she feels helpless and silly and useless that she can't do anything but give her a gift, but she will not cry.

"Promise you'll wear it into the arena, Katniss?" she asks, willing her voice not to shake. "Promise?"

"Yes," Katniss replies shortly.

Madge looks at her for a moment, and this could very well be the last time she'll see her. She wish she wouldn't be so pessimistic about it, but the Hunger Games is a blatant reminder of complete mortality. Once Katniss is gone, she will really be alone, the only person that's ever spoken to her. It will hurt, to lose Katniss.

She gives her a quick kiss on the cheek, knowing that neither of them are very big on physical contact, and then she leaves.

She steps out of the room, taking a moment in the hall to collect herself.

Right then, Gale nearly walks into her. She stumbles a little, and looks up. He moves around her quickly, but she doesn't miss the desperate look in his eyes as he passes.

 

* * *

 

"Listen," he says. "Getting a knife should be pretty easy, but you've got to get your hands on a bow. That's your best chance."

He clears his mind of emotions. What Katniss needs is not crying, but strategy. This is the thing they know how to talk about.

"They don't always have bows," Katniss says.

"Then make one," He replies urgently. "Even a weak bow is better than no bow at all."

"I don't even know if there'll be wood," Katniss says, and he can tell she's thinking about the year most of the tributes froze to death. He swallows thickly, pushing the thought of Katniss shivering in a snow wasteland on television for everyone to watch and gawk at.

"There's almost always some wood. Since that year half of them died of cold. Not much entertainment in that."

"Yes, there's usually some," Katniss affords.

"Katniss, it's just hunting. You're the best hunter I know." he assures her.

"It's not just hunting. They're armed. They think -"

"So do you. And you've had more practice. Real practice," he pushes, partly for her, partly for himself. "You know how to kill."

"Not people," She says faintly.

"How different can it be, really?" He says grimly.

Before he can say anything else the Peace Keepers are forcibly removing him from the room and his time is done.

"Don't let them starve!" Katniss cries out, clinging to his hand. He doesn't want to let go, because this was Katniss, the one person  _he_ could depend on, his best friend.

"I won't! You know I won't! Katniss, remember I —" he calls, but before he can finish they yank them apart and slam the door.

He finally shrugs off the Peace Keepers when they throw him out the door, and he walks out of the Justice Building, stomping angrily. What could a few more seconds have mattered to them? Well, it would have showed that the rules could be bended. And they'd be damned before they let that happen.

And then he sees her, in her white dress and pink ribbon sitting on a ledge at the side of the building. He wonders why she's still here. She's staring down at her hands and looks as if she might cry, but isn't yet. She looks up.

Their eyes meet. Her lips press together as her under-eyes grow red and puffy. She looks at him like she's trying to give him some comfort, but it's too close to pity for him, making him immediately angry... and utterly exhausted.

He turns away, abruptly making his way back to Seam and without turning back.

 


	5. Dinner

She stares blankly at the assortment of vegetables, then back down at the scrawled list. Isla sent her out to shop for some vegetables for tonight's meal, as at the time she was with Madge's mother and couldn't leave.

Tonight is the fifth night in a row she has to attend dinner with the reporters and stylists from the Capitol. The first night, it didn't seem too bad, they were bubbly and witty and though extremely elitist and a bit annoying, they were bearable. But, as the days went on, they grew more and more infuriating and harder to tolerate, with their comments about the cleanliness and luxury of the Capitol compared to the "filth and grime" of District 12.

District 12 itself felt like a rain cloud had permanently settled over it. It always had, every time the Hunger ames started, but this year those close to her were especially affected. It was Katniss and the baker's son Peeta were gone, and they wouldn't be seen until the Games officially started and they were fighting for their lives.

At school, at home, it was everywhere. The glorification of murder, killing for sport and entertainment. Every year around this time, her mother would descend into a crying, aching terror, never leaving her bed and shouting through her night terrors. Her father would become stressed and irritated, snapping and lashing out without reason.

She had now stood in front of the vegetable stand for more than ten minutes now. She had no idea which vegetables were which, and the farmers running the cart were currently indisposed or talking to other customers.

"Are you alright, dear?" A voice asks from behind her.

She turns around. It's Gale's mother, holding the hand of Gale's little sister.

"Hello, Mrs. Hawthorne." She says.

Mrs. Hawthorne and Isla were good friends for a long time before Isla came to work for Madge's father. But besides a few visits when Madge was little, she hadn't seen her in a while. Still, she knew who she was, and wanted to be polite. The older woman smiles kindly at her.

"Hello... Madge, is it?"

She nods.

"Isla doing well?"

"Yes, she's actually sent me out to gather a few ingredients for dinner, though I'm rather confused as to what she wants."

"Oh. Well, would you like some help?"

She smiles, showing Mrs. Hawthorne the list. She's relieved to have some help.

"Parsley, oregano, cauliflower, and cabbage. Well, this is a lot." Mrs. Hawthorne remarked quietly.

"Well, reporters from the Capitol have 'refined' expensive taste." She says, rolling her eyes. She suddenly stops herself.

"It's quite alright." Mrs. Hawthorne replied, sensing Madge's distress over her comment. "It must be difficult housing all of them."

"It is." She replies shortly, knowing that her father would be very upset with her for bad-mouthing the Capitol, even if it is only Mrs. Hawthorne.

Mrs. Hawthorne proceeded to pick out the needed vegetables, giving them to Madge to pay for. The cart owner took the money quickly, wrapping them up and giving them to Madge. She, Mrs. Hawthorne, and Gale's younger sister moved away from the cart and towards the road.

"Well, why don't you come over for dinner at our house?" Mrs. Hawthorne asks slowly.

She shakes her head earnestly, saying, "Oh, I couldn't -"

"It would be great to have you." Mrs. Hawthorne says warmly. "Gale's bringing rabbit tonight - you know Gale, don't you?"

"Um... yes."

"- Well, if it would be alright with your father, then you're welcome to come."

"Sure, then." She replies without another thought. "It would be much better company than at my house. Thank you."

 

* * *

 

She stands in front of the house she knows to be the Hawthorne's, staring at the wood front door. She's going to knock, going to be (hopefully) welcomed inside (right?). She just needs to pluck up the courage.

Part of her thinks this was a terrible idea. She won't lie, part of the reason she is so nervous is because of Gale. She knew he would eventually show up and she'd have to deal with whatever his reaction would be (or his non-reaction, as she never knew any other emotion from him other than cold indifference or hatred).

But part of her wants to go and have a meal with people who won't scrutinize her every move, who won't scoff at the food she helped for hours to prepare, and have conversation that doesn't revolve around the Games.

So she squares her shoulders, takes a breath, and knocks on the door.

"Oh, hello Madge. Come in."

Mrs. Hawthorne ushers her into the small house. She holds out some bread, and Mrs. Hawthorne takes it with a thank you.

"Who are you?" A young boy, about eleven, asks her. He looks like a younger version of Gale, their appearance and voice so alike it startles Madge considerably.

"Rory. Don't be rude." Mrs. Hawthorne scolds him as she makes her way into the kitchen. Madge shifts in her spot on the lumpy couch seat opposite from a rickety wooden table.

"Hi Madge!" chirps the little girl she met that morning. The shakily walking girl plops down next to her on the couch, launching into a disjointed story about Katniss' sister's goat. The boy, Rory, sits at the table, slowly writing on a piece of paper and watching her out of the corner of his eye as she listens to Posy's story.

Though she does feel a little uncomfortable, like an intruder, Posy makes her laugh, and it isn't long before Rory is chiming in with his own comments on the story.

Dinner starts, and Madge helps set the small table. Six places, for her, Vick, another Hawthorne who was helping in the kitchen, Mrs Hawthorne, Rory, Posy... and Gale. Vick carefully sets down a plate of rabbit in the middle of the table. Madge looks at it warily, but quickly covers up her expression. She's touched that they even included her in their family dinner. Half of the loaf of bread she brought is set next to it by Rory, who's telling his mother about something that happened in school, along with a plate of vegetables.

Posy hurries and takes the seat next to Madge, smiling at her broadly as she scoots her chair closer to her. Madge could almost laugh at how kind a sister of Gale's is to her when he couldn't even stand speaking to her for too long.

Dinner barely starts before the door opens.

Madge's stomach drops. Gale enters tiredly, wiping his boots on the ragged mat, and setting down his backpack. He looks tired, vulnerable, and it's obvious that he hasn't seen her yet.

"Good haul today, Gale?" Rory asks.

Gale nods, rubbing his forehead, when his gaze finally moves to the table, and then to Madge, she feels like she might throw up.

"Madge brought bread!" Posy says excitedly!

"It's fresh - a whole loaf!" Vick chimes in.

Automatically, Madge stands up from her chair in defense. Gale moves to her, grabs her arm roughly, tugging her into the other room.

"Gale!?" Mrs. Hawthorne's voice echos.

He lets her go, making her stumble over her own feet clumsily. She looks up at him and he glares at her.

"We don't need or appreciate your pity. I'm providing for my family just fine." He says harshly.

She shrinks under his dominance "I don't pity you, I -"

"My family is not your charity case - "

"It isn't - that's not what I -"

"Then  _why are you here?!"_ He shouts.

And suddenly, she's angry. Who's he to accost her when she's got a perfect excuse for being there?

"Gale, I ran into your mother in town this morning. She  _invited_  me over for dinner. I brought bread as my contribution, and to thank her." She says, her voice rising. "Believe me Gale, I don't pity you  _one bit._ _"_

"What's that supposed to mean?" He says tightly, but his voice isn't as biting as before.

"You've got two brothers and a sister who  _adore_ you, and a strong mother who loves you completely, and the capabilities to provide for yourself without worrying on anyone. I don't pity you at all."

She rubs her forehead, breathing out a humorless laugh.

"I don't know why I keep doing this. One minute, I think we're... well, that we're friendly, and then the next moment you turn around and act like you  _hate_ me." She says. She doesn't care what he thinks of her anymore. She's tired of trying to figure him out when he so obviously wants to stay unknown. "It's obvious you don't want me here. So please apologize to your mother for me. I'm feeling ill, and I need to go home. Thank her for the invitation."

She sidesteps Gale breezily, leaving through the wooden back door.

She stomps away (well, she resists stomping as much as she can, for it must look extremely childish, but eventually gives in anyway), fists balled.

She hates him, his mood swings, his brooding stare, his broad shoulders and messy hair.

She's only walked for two minutes before she hears footsteps behind her. She whips around to find Gale following her a few paces behind, his hands shoved casually in his pockets as if he's just out for a stroll.

"Oh, what do you want now?!" She yells angrily.

He  _shrugs_. "It's dark. You shouldn't be walking alone."

She narrows her eyes at him, but he remains just as annoyingly unperturbed as he always is.

"Stop following me!"

She continues walking, head held high, only to feel his presence behind her again. She turns, and he just stares at her like she's some silly idiot girl who's making a big fuss over nothing. That's all she'll ever be to him.

She's sick of it. "Oh just... just...  _fuck off!_ "

It's a shock hearing such dirty words from such a "clean" girl. She almost flinches after she says it, like the words are too harsh for her, but she doesn't take them back. Because she isn't fragile. She's just as strong as the rest of them, and she's tired of being looked down on or made fun of.

She marches away, feet pounding into the dirt road that gets more defined as she gets closer to town. She knows Isla won't expect her home so early, and she'll probably still have to endure another dinner with the elitists from the Capitol, but it's sure better than poking herself in where she so clearly isn't wanted.

At all.

 

* * *

 

He finally gets back to the house, his family is finishing dinner. He closes the door behind him, and his mother stands, her arms crossed and face stony.

"You'd better have a good explanation as to what happened just now." She says firmly.

"Where did you go, Gale? And where's Madge?" Posy asks.

"She was feeling ill." He mutters. "So she left."

"You made sure she got home alright?" His mother says in a softer voice.

His gaze shifts to the bread left sitting on the table next to the empty plates. Clenching his jaw and resisting the urge to kick the chair, he nods, and moves into the other room.

 


	6. Flora

Her eyes are looking at the television, but her gaze is unfocused. She idly picks her sandwich apart, separating the side with cheese and the side with meat. The cheese was expensive, Isla had packed it for her as a treat, but she couldn't bring herself to eat it.

The prodding from Isla about what was bothering her only made things worse, though she tried her best not to go off on her. Especially since Katniss wasn't around anymore, she felt lonely. Her father barely spoke to her anymore, her mother was always in her room with the door closed and the light off, and she had no other friends. On seldom occasions she spoke to Delly Cartwright, but she was always off with her boyfriend these days.

A loud noise vibrates from the cracked speakers of the wall monitor, and another commercial of a company supporting the Games comes thundering in. A collective jump and then an exhausted sigh is shared through the cafeteria. The Games are always on, everywhere you turn, and it's impossible to escape them.

Gale does, though. Madge hasn't seen him watch them once, not even when they're playing in the old television in the front room of his house.

She puts her face in her hands, rubbing her eyes. She doesn't want to think about him anymore. It makes her feel sick.

Her father told her that she would be playing for the guests from the Capitol that night, and to have something spectacular prepared for them. She'd tried to protest, but he'd only shot her down and told her that this was her duty.

She didn't want to play for them. She didn't want them to take away and ruin the only thing that kept her alive. She didn't want them to criticize and pick apart the only thing that was truly hers.

She watches a group of girls from the Seam exit the cafeteria, talking loudly. They are laughing about something.

She stares down at her sandwich again, forcing herself to put the bread back together and eat it.

She looks back up again to find the group of girls stepping aside to let someone into the cafeteria past them.

 _He_  sits down in the empty seat next to her. Katniss' seat.

Her jaw clenches and she fights not to dig her fingers into the soft bread in her grip. No matter how alone she feels, she's still upset about dinner last weekend. She wonders why he's here, he never comes to lunch, but then shoves it out of her mind. She had been doing a good job not worrying or wondering or watching Gale Hawthorne this week, and she's going to maintain it.

He is silent for a while, just sitting and staring at the table instead of the televisions around the cafeteria with the Games on them.

She can't stand it, just him sitting next to her. She's about to move before he turns to her and blurts, "I'm sorry."

She's startled, by the break in silence, but mostly because of the softness in his tone.

He has a flower. It's so small and fragile, and he holds it so delicately in his grip. He holds it out to her, cautiously, apologetically, waiting, as she stares at it in disbelief.

"For dinner, I mean. And the way I, uh, acted."

She takes it carefully, twirling the stem as she looks at it. It's a wild flower, something that looks like it was growing in the meadow. Not like the cut flowers her father has delivered to the house every few days.

She finds she thinks this one is much more beautiful.

She doesn't know what the flower means, but she lets herself smile.

"Thanks for walking me home, sorry I told you to..."

" - It's alright." He says. The ghost of a smile is playing at his lips, and she can't believe this is happening, he's never smiled at her before. "I didn't think you would know words like that."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me." She replies shortly, but affords him a smile. His smiles grows.

Her heart flutters, and she looks down at her hands in her lap, biting the insides of her cheeks to stop from smiling too big.

 

* * *

 

Rory walks ahead with Prim, in the middle of another grand story about another scrape he managed to escape. Posy holds Gale's hand tightly, stepping calculating putting one foot in front of the other. Vick trails behind, struggling under the heavy books he had to bring home today.

Bristol catches up to them as they start down the dirt road splitting town and the Seam.

"Hi Bristol!" Posy says happily.

He smiles. "Hey, Pose." She grins toothily, pleased with the returned greeting.

"Didn't see you behind the school today." Bristol says, looking at him subtly.

"Went to lunch." He says shortly.

"I know."

He knows it was a bad idea, approaching her in such a public place. Maybe it was a bad idea speaking to her at all. But the guilt had been gnawing at him all week. He saw how she walked to school and home alone, he couldn't help watching her whenever he saw. He remembered the way she played piano and the way her house was so quiet. The way she'd spoken about his family like she didn't have any of her own. He had been completely taken aback at her fiery demeanor and obvious assessment of the relationship they had.

And when he saw that flower in the meadow, he knew he had to apologize.

And for some reason, the fact that she thought he hated her bothered him. It didn't used to, but suddenly he couldn't stand it.

Gale takes a breath. "Posy, can you go see if Rory can count past one hundred?"

"Ok!"

As soon as his younger sister is out of ear shot, Bristol looks at him expectantly.

Gale says nothing.

Bristol rolls his eyes. "Look, I know you think she's attractive. I'm your friend, I see this stuff."

"I don't - "

"A guy doesn't give a girl he doesn't want flowers."

A look passes between the two of them.

"She's the mayor's daughter."

"I know."

They get into the Seam, where Bristol's sister waves to him through the open window of their house. Bristol waves back, burning and giving one more look at Gale.

"Alright." Bristol finally says, leaving into his house and greeting his sister. Kids run through Gale's path, screaming and running after each other.

He knows Bristol is right, only reminding him of everything he already knows.

He keeps walking home, following the figures of Posy, Vick, and Rory, hands shoved in his pockets, forcing himself not to think about anything except the rabbit his mother would be cooking by the time he got home.

 

* * *

 

He sits with her now during lunch.

Neither speak much. Neither mind it.

She eats, he finishes work.

Sometimes she wishes she could offer him some of her lunch, but she knows he would never take it.

The Games preliminaries have started and they've been doing profiles on the different tributes. Their scores should be out soon, and it's important that Katniss do well if she wants sponsors.

She steals a look at him. He's quietly making his way through a worksheet probably due next period.

She watches him leave every day with his brothers and sister. She smiles at the gentleness he shows when he holds Posy's hands and helps her down the big stairs of the school building.

She looks back at her food, knowing that by letting herself absorb more details than she already has learned will only hurt more, but she can't stop herself. He's like an iceberg, so much more hiding under the rippling water.

She knows he will never be hers, but she can't help relishing the thought of having a friend.

 

* * *

 

He speaks to her, though, the day after the scores for the tributes have been released. It's in the morning, not at their usual lunch spot, but as she's walking up the stairs leading into the school building. He stops her at the door, hand gently skimming across her arm.

She fights back a reaction.

"An eleven." He says simply.

He's talking about Katniss. When her scores were shown, the entire town was in a united positive shock.

She nods, smiling. "An eleven. It's truly extraordinary."

He smiles so genuinely that she feels a pang in her heart. She's happy, so happy, that score will give Katniss a lot of supporters and that will give her a huge advantage. But the little green-eyed monster living inside her makes her insides twist in jealousy at the poignant way Gale talks about her.

To him, Katniss is extraordinary, while Madge is just plain ordinary.

He leaves, walking into school past her, as she stands lamely watching him go. She takes a moment, collects herself, and starts after him.

 

* * *

 

He likes having her as a friend.

She's quiet. She doesn't demand the forced small talk he usually has to bear from most girls. Hunting, his family, and lunch with Madge becomes his life.

Those times his foot will brush hers accidentally makes him bear the televisions blaring around the cafeteria.

He bites the inside of his cheek and stifles the feeling deep in his stomach.

He's letting himself spiral deeper and deeper in. He wishes he'd kept his resolve, stayed away, stuck it out. But he couldn't.

She scratches her nails across the paper every time she turns a page in her book.

He doesn't know why he's focusing on it, but it helps to see she has annoying habits and isn't all golden hair and creamy skin.

Matt Genyk speaks while walking past their lunch table one day, startling the both of them.

"Hey Madge."

She looks up from her book with widened eyes and heightened shoulders, as if she's just been yanked out from some other world she's disappeared into.

"Hi." She says softly, in a voice that sounds a little higher than her regular one.

Matt smiles once more, continuing on the way to the table where the boys from town and their girlfriends usually sit.

He felt a scoff leave his lips before he could bite it back.

She turns to him with a questioning look on her face, to nice to look demanding.

There are so many things he wants to say,  _could_ say, but really he won't.

He just looks blankly at her before returning to the worksheet he needs to have done by a period from now. He doesn't understand why anyone bothers with school when he'll just end up a miner who doesn't need to know the square root of pi, but he does well in school to make sure his mother doesn't worry about him any more than she needs to.

Really, Matt would be terrible for Madge. He is in the grade below Gale, and a rich boy from town whose family sold wool. But he was smarmy and annoying, and not genuine. He was just like all the other narcissistic town guys. He wasn't right for her. He didn't deserve her.

Gale fights to keep his fists from balling up, pushing himself to fall into the worksheet and forget about the girl sitting next to him.

 

* * *

 

"Madge! Madge!" Posy yells, jumping up and down and waving across the road.

The blond girl turns, startled, but shoulders relax when she sees where the call came from. She crosses the street from the school building, meeting Posy with a, "Hello Posy."

"Will you walk with us?" Posy asks hopefully, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet.

She looks up at Gale, possibly for acceptance.

He smiles slightly at her, and she takes it.

"Sure."

They walk along the road, Gale, Madge and Posy. Vick has been home sick with a cold, and Rory has already gone along ahead with Prim. Posy chatters on about new projects at school and the daisies beginning to grow outside the Hawthorne's house.

He watches Madge as she laughs kindly, engages Posy in questions and conversation. She's light and happy, and with each next story Posy looks more and more pleased with her company.

"Are the people from the Capitol still staying at your house?" Posy asks.

"Yes, I think so." Madge replies tiredly.

"I don't think they're very nice." Posy says unsurely.

Gale squeezes her hand a little, with a look of scolding, when Madge says, "No, they aren't."

And in that moment he almost forgets to keep walking. A blatant slight to the Capitol passing through this prim and proper girls' mouth. It shocks him, like her cursing that night and the secret curves she has hiding under her sundresses.

He stares down at the ground. Best not to think about her body right now.

They come to the fork in the road where District 12 splits off between town and the Seam. Madge says goodbye to Posy, with a brief smile at Gale.

"Goodbye Madge!" Posy calls as Madge finishes the short walk from the road to her grand-looking house in the middle of town.

"She's nice." Posy says when her and Gale finally reach their house.

Gale replies shortly with, "Yeah. She is."


	7. Rain

He is tense today.

She knows it's probably because of the interviews that aired last night. About Katniss' eleven. About her dress. About her holding hands with Peeta. About how Peeta said he was in love with Katniss.

Was Gale in love with Katniss?

She stares down at her food. She wishes she wouldn't think this way. She wishes she didn't care so much.

But she does.

She pulls on the ribbon in her hair, the one her mother once said brought out her eyes.

But her mother doesn't really say much of anything anymore. Especially not since the Games have started again this year. But she will not think about that. Nor about how Gale's foot taps on the ground or the way his collar is uneven and only half folded, and how she itches to fix it for him.

* * *

He drags his palm harshly over his face.

He wishes he could have just stayed asleep today. Or maybe for a week.

But he's at school, under the harsh florescent lights, braving the cruel world. His friends who stare at him uncertainly, the way the damn televisions are everywhere and playing recaps of what's already aired last night.

He does not feel anything.

He doesn't know. Everything is unsure, out of proportion and perspective.

He almost forgets Madge sitting next to him.

_Almost._

But of course, he never really can forget her, can he? Even when his best friend has just been embarrassed or... whatever by that prick from town, he's still conscious of the edge of his shirt sleeve touching her shoulder.

* * *

"Are you alright?" She asks him the next day. She feels she's earned this right by now, seeing as they're friends. And he hasn't spoken a word to her, not even a hello.

"He's such a snake." He blurts out. "The only reason he made up all that is because he wanted to make her look weak."

She swallows her pain, saying, "I think it'll help her."

"How could it possibly do that?" He demands, his tone suddenly sharp. She tries to keep her calm and explain.

"Well, it's advertisement. Something juicy to entice potential sponsors. The guests from the Capitol who've been staying here haven't stopped talking about them since the interview. Everyone's calling them the star-crossed lovers from District 12."

He scoffs. "The star-crossed lovers from District 12? What a load of trash."

She feels her eyes almost welling up with tears. She feels stupid, so stupid. She should remember things that are so obvious, but it's a little shock and hurts anyway.

"Maybe." She says flatly.

She finds herself gathering up her books as fast as she can, because if she lets herself cry in front of him she will never forgive herself. He looks confused as she shoves in her chair and turns away, but she doesn't see.

* * *

She does not show up to lunch the day after, and he spends the entire time looking up every time someone else bangs through the doors. He wonders where she is, if she stayed home today, if she's well. What if something happened to her?

He doubts it would, she's the mayor's daughter, but all the same. She hasn't missed a day this whole school year.

But she is back the day after that, and he can't help asking her, "Where were you yesterday?"

As soon as it leaves his mouth he wishes he could take it back, because he sounds so needy, and he hates it.

"I had to meet my algebra teacher during lunch about a makeup test." She says choppily. She's lying.

He wants to badger her and find out where she actually was, but he won't. Instead, they fall into their companionable quiet again, though he can't help but notice she's sitting a little farther away than she usually does.

He misses coming to see her on the weekends. For the past few weeks he hadn't been delivering strawberries, as they had been out of season. His old excuse to see her was gone, and he was left with an hour and a few words each day, which he patiently (well, as patiently as he could) looked forward to.

"Is... is everything alright?" He tries again. The words feel strange.

But the smile she gives him after he says them make up for it.

"Yes." She says shortly, but it's kinder.

"I was worried about you."

He must have hit his head during the night because he's absolutely sure his brain did not give his mouth consent to say that. Her cheeks look a little pink and she looks down at her hands.

He feels completely embarrassed, and resolutely says nothing more for the rest of the period.

But she speaks as the bell rings and the room clamors with everyone leaving for class.

"Would you like to come over today?" It's one of her spontaneous questions.

"Is that allowed?" He answers quickly. "I mean - "

"Well, my m - yes. Yeah, it's fine." She says hurriedly. "I just need an opinion on this new piece I've been practicing, and since I played for you that one time and you said that you liked it and the piece I want to play for you today is kind of similar, so I thought that you would like this one too, maybe."

She's babbling.

"Yeah. Sure." He says, and tries not to smile. He knows it's a bad idea that he's agreed to. But it's hard to keep the corners of his mouth down nonetheless.

She smiles unabashedly. "Great."

 

* * *

 

Her father and the guests from the Capitol should be out for a while. She has the house to herself.

She feels jittery as she opens the back door. His shoes are not muddy today, and she's glad to not have to implore him to take them off. He wears the soft gray shirt he's worn to school, his hair looks pleasantly tousled from the wind.

She hopes she doesn't look like she's trying too hard. She's wearing her favorite sundress today, and her hair tied up in a ribbon. He smiles as a greeting.

They go over to the piano, him pulling out the bench for them.

She drinks in the image of him in her house, him sitting next to her, the sleeve of his shirt grazing her arm.

She opens the sheet music, and she watches him squint slightly looking at the notes.

"How do you know what keys to play from this?" He asks skeptically.

"It's sheet music. The notes correspond to different keys, and such." She explains. She never really gave reading music a second thought, it was just something that musicians did. But she guessed most of the players in the Seam played by hand.

"You've got to be really smart to figure that out." He replies sparsely. She hopes she isn't blushing too hard.

She bites her lip, and starts to play.

Her nimble fingers fly over the keys.

He lets himself forget everything, about Vick still sick at home, about how that's only the least of his worries. About how unsure everything seems to be lately, about how he only thinks about getting through the day, about how he was always the man with the plans, and now he's walking blind through a field of troubles.

He watches her, taking her in as she focuses and breathes into the music.

He suddenly wishes he could reach out and brush her hair behind her ear and take her hands in his and kiss her until he forgets who he is, and all he can remember is her.

It starts to rain, a soft patter against the closed windows with the white curtains billowing around it. A soft, warm rain, a companion to the tune from the piano she plays.

And he realizes that she is so much more than he ever imagined. More than a beautiful, spoiled mayor's daughter. How good she is with Posy. How she stood up to him when he was being an asshole, but how she forgave him gladly.

And how she felt in his arms when they danced together and her smile when he said goodnight.

Her fingernails are clean. His are dirty.

And therein lies the painful difference.

But he's tired. So fucking tired of this aching pain that sprouts from him not being good enough to pursue her.

Because maybe he's exactly what she needs. And maybe he can't keep fighting off these feelings anymore...

The front door to the large house opens loudly, filling with muffled high-pitched laughter and trivial conversation.

Her eyes widen, and she stands up abruptly. The music cuts off as her fingers fly off the instrument and the paper sheets fall to the floor soundlessly.

"You've got to get out of here." She whispers sharply, taking his hand and leading him quickly out the back door. The screen door flies open and she pushes him out onto the porch, sounds of raindrops falling loudly against the roof.

"You... you play perfectly." He finds himself saying.

She blushes. It's beautiful. "Thanks, but I've got a long way to go before it's perfect."

She's leaning against the screen door, and she's got to get back in there or her father will get anxious.

But he's standing there, against the dull gray background of rain. Nothing's ever stood out the way he has, with his dark hair and tanned skin and his sharp words and mood swings but underneath them so much more hiding beneath the surface, so much ferocity and ambition and  _love_.

So she lets the screen door shut and steps a little closer to him. He smells like woodsmoke.

"I love the way you play." He finds himself saying. It's the most honest thing he's ever said to her, and his eyes, for once are alive. Unguarded, and it startles her in the most pleasant way.

And before she can register it, he's stepping closer to her and she's leaning into him.

He looks down at her, her brushed blond hair half up half down, falling down her shoulders like rivers of gold. And the light behind her eyes. The strap of her dress is sliding half off her shoulder, but she doesn't seem to notice.

He wants her – right now. Before he can stop himself, he presses his lips to hers blindly, hands finding her hips.

She is like the sun through the trees, she is honey and yellow and light. And her lips are softer than wool and petals of flowers and anything he has ever experienced in his life.  **  
**

He is caught up in this moment, here, now, the giving in. He is kissing Madge Undersee, and he doesn't want to stop.

She has no idea what to do with her arms – they hang next to her limply, but she doesn't even care because of what Gale's lips are doing to hers.

She can't breathe. She can't think. This must be a dream.

Gale Hawthorne is kissing her. On her back porch. And she is kissing him back.

And she's alive, every molecule of her body finally feels like it's being awakened for the first time.

He's finally the one to pull away, his hands still burning holding her hips. And the way she looks up at him, lips a little swollen, makes him want to kiss her again and never stop.

But he hears the voices inside the house and is rudely reminded of reality. His hands slide off her hips, and into his pockets, as he backs away from her.

"Bye Madge." He says, a step closer to the rain and away from her.

She looks blankly at him, she can't think of anything fun or witty to say, but he doesn't seem to mind. He only smiles, and takes that last step into the rain, his hands still shoved into his pockets.

"…Bye." She murmurs after him. She watches him walk away, his shirt becoming darkened by the raindrops. His shoulders are hunched up against the weather. **  
**

Her hand flies up to her lips.

She finally remembers her father inside, and the guests from the Capitol, and her agreement to play at dinner tonight. She shoves her blond hair behind her ears, trying (in vain) to collect herself before she goes back inside.

 


	8. Hands

She wraps herself in the expensive soft blankets that sit on her bed, pulling them up above her chin, curling into a ball. It isn't very cold, but she likes to cocoon herself up when she needs to think about things.

Her hand darts up to touch her lips. The lips that touched Gale Hawthorne's lips.

The kiss had been softer than she'd expected. Surprisingly so.

Admittedly, all of the pathetic times Madge had let her mind wander over what it would feel like, it always was edging on the cusp of harshness. That was just his way. He never seemed happy or content about anything, always just guarded and removed. And from the overheard bathroom talk, it was said that he always "took control".

And he was in control, if she was thinking about it. But it had been sweet, a taste, a beginning. Like when he would hold Posy's hand while they walked home. And the fact that it was him, rigid and cold, made it all the more better when he was gentle.

Questions flood through her mind at the meaning behind it, but she pushes them away for now. She wants to just enjoy this as something that's just between the two of them.

She hears the sounds of the television blaring downstairs. The bloodbath is set to happen tomorrow, and they're still re-running the interviews. Ambrosia, the woman with pink-tinted skin, preferred the blond from District 1 with the see-through gold dress. Fabian, a man that wore a different hat every day, bet on the boy from District 2 to win because of his brute strength. The other three, though, gushed about Katniss and Peeta until day's end.

She excused herself as quickly as she could after dinner, insisting that her fingers were sore and couldn't bear to play today. Luckily, the guests were otherwise occupied, and she was able to slip away.

She wonders what he's doing now. She wonders what she's allowed to wonder. Lines have been permanently blurred, and she's not really sure where they start anymore.

 

* * *

 

There's a knock at the back door.

It's Saturday.

He must be here with the strawberries. He hasn't delivered any in a while, but why else would he be here?

She hopes she looks alright, she's just been cleaning her room.

Sure enough, he's standing on the porch with two full pails of perfectly ripe strawberries. Her breath hitches seeing him again. He's wearing that gray shirt under a brown vest. He smiles at her slightly, saying simply, "The beginning of summer's always the best time for berries."

She searches blindly for words to say. Of course, he's collected and together while she's falling apart.

"Sure. Let me get some - oh my god, you're bleeding!" She exclaims.

The skin right under his gray short-sleeved shirt is red brown and raised. He jumps a little at her elevated tone, but then calmly looks at the cut on his arm.

"Oh, yeah." He says loftily.

"Here, let me help." She commands automatically, reaching for his elbow to tug him inside.

"It's fine. I'm fine." He replies, but only pulls away a little.

"Seriously. We've got bandages upstairs." She says. "At least let me wash it for you."

"Well... ok." He finally says, following her inside.

The house is quiet today, as the guests from the Capitol sleep off their hangovers and her father's down at the market with Isla updating the storage cupboards. The floors and ceilings echo, even with no one in between.

He imagines it might be lonely, living like this. But, then again, the luxury comes with a price.

She leads him upstairs. He's never gone upstairs before. He wonders what he's getting himself into.

She's wearing a white shirt today, of soft, flimsy material only built for fashion purposes, and shorts. His eyes stick to her legs.

The upper floor, so far as he can see as he comes to the top of the furnished wood steps, is mostly a long hallway with many doors. Madge flicks on the light and lets go of her grip on him, continuing down the hall to one of the doors on the left. It's a bathroom, with blue tiles and a real bathtub. Gale stares at it from the doorway with wide eyes. She doesn't notice. She's too busy digging around in a cabinet over the tub.

"M...Madge?" A thin voice calls from down the hallway.

He ducks out of the bathroom to see who it is.

A woman in a thin white bathrobe closed tightly steps halfway out of a darkened room. Her arms are crossed, holding the robe as if for life. Her hair was blond, a shade darker than Madge's, but her eyes were sad. Like they'd looked into the eye of a storm and seen too much. Like she was a puzzle and lost a few pieces along the way.

Madge steps in front of him, to his uncomfortable relief. "What is it, mom?" She asks tightly.

"I just heard... I don't know." Madge's mother says. Her voice sounds like it's agony to say each syllable. The woman peers around Madge's shoulder at Gale.

"Why don't you go back to bed?" Madge suggests gently, taking her gently by her shoulder and trying to lead her back through the door. They move slowly, her mother putting almost all her weight on her.

The woman sighs. "I think I will. Do you... Can you get me some - "

"I'll bring it to you later, alright? Just try to go back to sleep." She says quickly, closing the door as soon as the woman is inside. Gale shoves his hands into his pockets. He feels like an intruder to this.

He's heard that Mrs. Undersee hadn't left the house in years, and every year at the reaping it's just Madge and the Mayor. No one really knows why, some people said she was dead and the Mayor was just covering it up by saying she was always sick. He thinks about his own, strong mother. He can't imagine her like that.

He feels Madge's eyes on him, and she coughs a little, before moving past him quickly back into the bathroom. She says nothing, just starts washing her hands in the faucet. He leans against the door, having to stare at the ceiling to stop looking at her bent-over figure.

She glances back over her shoulder at him and nods her head at the end of the bathtub's rim.

"Sit." She says.

He does.

She dries her hands off on a washcloth and steps up next to him. She's got a jar of a substance he's never seen before - and he fights not to pull away when she opens it and scoops some out with the tips of her fingers.

When it first touches his skin, it's just cold, but as it sinks in it starts to hurt.

"Ow!" He yells. "What the hell is this?"

"Disinfectant." She says calmly, putting the jar down on the table. "You don't want to wound to turn green."

"I could have just washed it at home." He says petulantly, and though he'd deny it, he sort of likes having her want to take care of him. He was always taking care of everyone else - of Posy, or Rory or Vick or even sometimes his mother. And she was so gentle, drying it off with that soft towel, dabbing here and there.

Her hand skims his shoulder. Her thighs touch the side of his leg, and he tries to look impassive.

"There." She murmurs. "All clean."

And he leans over, sliding his hand past her hair and pulling her into a kiss.

And here she is, sweet but something unseen burning within her. She kisses him back, her hands gripping his shoulders hard, sitting down next to him on the rim.

She's got a lump in her throat and tingling all over, the way she feels is new and frightening. She wants to be closer to him, and his tongue sweeps the bottom of her lip and she finds herself opening her mouth.

And his tongue is inside her mouth and it's - well, it's definitely not gross. From all that talk she's overheard at school, she expected it all to be rather wet and unpleasant. But it isn't.

The sting from his cut doesn't affect him anymore, he doesn't know why or how she's so good at this, her lips so hard to pull away from. She's tentative, but it only spurs him on more. Before he can control himself, his hands are on her bare thighs. And she finally pulls away slowly, and looks up at him through heavy eyelids.

A moment or two of silence goes by before she has to bite her lip to stop from laughing a nervous laugh. But a giggle pops out. To her relief, it's answered by a chuckle from Gale.

Her eyes shift up to look at him surprisedly.

"That's the first time I've ever heard you laugh." She blurts out. Suddenly her mind shuts down and then switches into overdrive when she realizes what she's said. It's so awkward, she can't imagine how he could respond to something like that.

But he simply says, "I don't do it very often."

"I wish you would. You have a nice laugh."

 

* * *

 

He's going to be sick. He holds Posy in his arms, but she's gotten much bigger since last year. Rory stands stock-still next to him, and Vick holds his mother's hand tightly. They're introducing the tributes again in the pre-game show before it'll all start.

It's mandatory. The town square is crowded with everyone from District 12, all crowded together in shared desolation. Peace Keepers line the boundaries, and the guests from the Capitol start to find their seats up on the platform. Above the filth of the common folk, of course.

Every year. Every year he stands among the crowd, discreetly shielding his little sister's eyes from the horror that they are all forced to watch until they all die themselves. It is a constant reminder that they are powerless, they are nothing. And it makes him so furious he sees red.

"Madge!" Posy suddenly yells joyously from Gale's arms, looking over his shoulder. He turns and sees Madge in a comically fancy dress that makes her look ridiculously self-concious and a hopeful expression.

"Hi." He says shortly. She comes up to stand next to him, her hands clasped.

"What are you doing down here?" He can't help asking.

"There weren't enough seats, with all the Capitol guests." She says tiredly. He looks up at the brightly-colored people laughing uproariously every five minutes. A corner of his mind thinks how terrible it must be to have them staying in her house. "Do you mind if I stand with you guys?"

"Sure you can stand with us!" Posy chirps before Gale can even open his mouth.

But she looks to Gale for permission. He nods almost imperceptibly, and finds himself mustering up a smile. And when she smiles back at him, he feels like maybe he'll get through this day without vomiting.

But then the television is blaring. The tributes are lined up, each on their own pedestal as the camera pans over each one of their faces.

And he sees Katniss'. Guilt hits him square in the chest - he's been kissing Madge while Katniss has been essentially preparing to die. But that's quickly replaced with raw fear and dread.

She's probably going to be killed today. The cornucopia bloodbath usually wipes out half of the competition on the first day. He knows she's capable, but she's up against the Careers; people who have trained their entire lives for this, who volunteered, who won't show even the tiniest drop of mercy.

And he's worried for her. She's been his best friend since that day in the woods. And now he's going to see her die.

During the countdown, everyone holds their breath.

It starts - and it's horrible. The tributes all run frantically, shown in the choppy shots the cameras get. The District 1 and 2 tributes automatically start their kill count with a vengeance.

He orders Posy not to look, and suddenly Madge's hand comes up and grips his forearm hard. The crowd is silent, everyone weathering the storm. The camera finally shows Katniss - she's managed to get an orange backpack, barely escaping a knife thrown at her by the Tribute from District 2.

Katniss disappears into the woods, and isn't followed immediately. Gale begins to breathe again, eventually. Posy, finally realizing herself, starts pulling on Gale's shirt.

"Gale, I have to go to the bathroom."

"What?"

"I have to go to the bathroom!"

"You can't right now."

"It's an emergency."

"No, Posy."

"Gale, please!"

He squeezes his eyes shut. He looks around to his mother, but she's crouched down, holding a shaking Vick. Posy's eyes begin to well up, and Madge taps his shoulder.

"I can take her." She says quickly.

"What?"

"Trust me." She pleads, looking pointedly at Posy, covering her eyes with her hands.

He reluctantly puts Posy down, and through her beginning, quiet sobs, she looks up at Madge hopefully.

"I'll be back." She says firmly, locking eyes with him. He nods once, but follows them with his eyes as Madge takes Posy by the hand and leads her through the crowd. She gets to the boarder, and runs into the Head Peacekeeper.

"Hello little lady." He greets her gruffly, and his cold, dark eyes flick down to Posy as she edges behind Madge's skirt.

"She needs to use the bathroom." Madge says in her most confident voice. She assumes the role she was always supposed to be, a spoiled mayor's daughter.

"So?" Cray laughs.

She squares her shoulders and tips up her nose. "I'm sure you are aware of who my father is. You wouldn't want this getting back to him, would you?"

"If  _you_ need to use the bathroom, missy, you can go. But  _that one_ ," He says rudely, pointing down at Posy and making her hide completely behind Madge. "can't."

"She is my personal guest and if you'd like me to go up to my father's friends from the Capitol and tell them that you just refused and insulted me, then try not letting me pass again." She spat at him.

He sucks in his teeth for a moment, running a hand over his mostly-bald head. Then he shrugs, and steps away.

The square is relatively close to Madge's house, so she takes Posy there. And of course, Posy stares in awe at everything, especially the bathroom.

Madge smiles when Posy reverts back to her old self, telling stories and laughing at her own jokes. She thinks what Posy really needed was a break from all that terror that's still happening in the square. And if she's being honest, she did too.

When they make it back, the bloodbath has finally,  _finally_ ended, and they see Gale and Rory leaving the town square behind a group of sullen boys from the Seam. Posy runs and hugs Gale's legs, and starts off on how Madge called her a "personal guest" and how big Madge's house is.

And Gale looks to her, with a half smile on his face, and Madge finds herself giving him a shrug.

Posy ducks behind Gale to Mrs. Hawthorne, and tells her the same high-speed story.

"Thank you." Gale says, meeting Madge's stride as they walk away from the square and back to town.

"It was nothing." She replies. The bloody images she's just seen still color her mind when she closes her eyes, but she's glad to see that this favor she could do for him can make him smile.

 


	9. Summer

He won't watch. He won't look up.

He won't see cameras searching for the tributes, he won't fret or worry or jabber or chatter about anything involving the Games. That would play right into their hands.

It's mandatory to have the televisions showing the Games at all times, so they took away the power switch for all the rooms in schools. It's playing constantly, the volume booming and scraping against everyone's ears, clawing its way into minds. Education is interrupted - because this is the only education they really need. To learn that they are nothing, and that they can be wiped out at any moment if they stray from the line.

So this small act of rebellion, not watching, like the rest of the cafeteria, is necessary. He knows he wants to do something else - something drastic to fight back, but he's biding his time.

He won't watch.

Instead, he's going to just try to solve the problem in front of him. Not that he'll ever need math like this ever again, down in the dark and dank mines, another cog in a functioning machine, but he does it anyway.

"What the hell are you doing?" Thom's voice suddenly booms. A second later, his body accompanies his voice and he sits down the seat next to Gale, roughing hitting against his shoulder.

"Homework." He answers.

Thom rolls his eyes. "With  _Madge Undersee._  I saw her, she was standing with you during the bloodbath."

He won't answer.

Because he actually doesn't know what he's doing. He's kissing her. He's listening to her play piano. He's watching the way her hair flies in the breeze and the way she eats strawberries.

"Gale." Thom says loudly.

"Thom."

He looks at him gravely. "I'm serious. You know who her father is."

"Yeah, I do." Gale replies sharply. He, of anyone, knows.

Thom leans in closer to him, covering the worksheet in front of Gale with his palm, demanding his attention. "There are plenty of pretty girls - "

" _Thom_."

"- that are really available. What about Tessa? I'm sure she'd be happy to see you again."

"I don't want to see Tessa." He mutters irritably. He likes Thom, but he wishes he'd just leave him alone. Especially about this.

"Why not? Tessa's great." Thom ducks his head back up, and waves across the room. "Hey, Tessa!"

The brown-haired girl turns slowly, catches Thom's call, and giggles.

"Hi Thom." Tessa says. Her eyes shift down to his, and she gives him a feral smile. "Gale."

"See?" Thom insists.

"Thom, stop it." He says firmly.

Thom retreats for a moment, sucking in his teeth, before going back in. "And what about Katniss?"

"What about Katniss?" Gale almost flinches at her name.

"Have you just forgotten about her?" Thom pushes. "Don't lie, everyone knows you're completely in love with her. Or  _were_ _,_ I guess I should say."

Gale's pencil bends so hard it snaps.

"Fuck off, Thom."

Thom shrugs, finally jumping up from the seat, and standing by the corner of the table. "I'm just letting you know that whatever's going on between you and Madge Undersee should stop. For your own good."

 

* * *

 

He's just noticed the small vase on the windowsill. It only held one flower - a daisy, presumably the one he'd picked for her in apology for his behavior that night she'd been over for dinner.

His fingers drift over the petals. He stands in her kitchen, under the guise of walking her home. She invited him in.

School's about to end, which would bring unbridled joy. But for him, in a week, he'll have to officially start mining. He tries not to dwell too much on that for too long.

The house is blissfully quiet, she explains that all the Capitol guests are sleeping off their hangovers, and that her father is out doing rounds with the Peacekeepers before the camera's taping. She doesn't mention her mother, but he assumes she's upstairs too.

"I saved it." She admits, pouring herself a glass of water. She holds it up, offering him some, but he declines.

He looks at the drooping flower. "It's dying."

"I guess this means you'll have to get me another, then." She says loftily.

A chuckle escapes him, and he says, "Alright."

"Come on, it's a nice day. Let's sit outside." She leaves the kitchen through the back, balancing a bowl of something with one hand and opening the door with the other. "It's the first official day of summer today, according to my father's calendar."

He follows her out into the backyard, a fresh-looking lawn with a small fruit tree. She seems to float over to a shady spot underneath the tree. He sits next to her, leaning against the small tree trunk.

"Strawberry?" She finally asks, showing him the bowl. He doesn't bother fighting down his smile, and he shakes his head. She shrugs cavalierly. "Suit yourself. They're delicious. I have to hide them from those people from the Capitol, they seem to love them as well."

"Really? They eat all your food?"

She rolls her eyes. "They don't seem to grasp the concept that they're guests. And that I'm not a hired servant."

"Why are they here? In District 12?" Gale asks, his voice on edge.

"They're reporters. They've been preparing to do interviews with people who are close to Katniss or Peeta. For television between breaks." She explains. She cuts her eyes at him, and adds, "They'll probably interview you."

"I... don't think so." He replies shortly.

She looks down at her hands in her lap. She's sorry she brought it up, now. It's a dream, being here, just spending time in the warm summer sun with him. Though she secretly likes watching him get angry. She wants to see that passion that he guards so much.

"They're idiots." He suddenly says. "All of them, those people living in the Capitol. They're distracted by shining things, turning a blind eye to the poor, all of us  _"below"_ them. And the President and all his little subsidiaries, all they do is take and take and take. We give them an inch - they'll always take a mile. We have to prove somehow that we're  _not sheep_."

And there it is. His voice is colorful, and he cares, and there's something burning and growing behind his eyes.

"How?" She asks. He blinks for a moment, but then looks casually the other way.

"I don't know."

She picks a blade of grass out of the ground and twirls it between her fingers.

"I feel that way too. Sometimes, when I look at my father, and think about the way he used to be before he had the job... It just changes you. Constantly having to worry about what the Capitol and President Snow think. It's like we're all these ants in this glass container, and at any time they can crush us."

"Yeah...yeah, exactly." He says slowly, he can't believe she's just said that. She gets it.

"What?" She queries, a little more of the earlier lightness back in her tone. And he can't help but smile again. Because she was the last person he would ever expect to understand, but she does. Of course she does. It's her.

"Nothing." He murmurs quietly.

Her blue eyes meet his grey ones, gazes colliding somewhere in between.

And she suddenly takes a fistfull of his shirt and pulls him down to her lips. The heady, dizzy feeling sets in, like her knees are about to buckle, but she's sitting now and safe from that embarrassing reaction.

Her world is turned sideways as her back hits the soft grass. He leans on top of her, his hard, muscular form pressing against hers. He smells like woodsmoke and apples and earth.

His hands squeeze her hips slightly, reflexively. His tongue slides along her bottom lip, and her lips part slightly as he does this. He's done this a lot before, she can tell. She aches, in an alarming, fiery way that makes a lump grow in her throat.

He is fire. Fire, that is hot and destructive and angry and sporadic and unpredictable and addictive.

She is sugar – expensive sugar, expensive sugar he can never afford.

But he doesn't stop – he can't stop. The way her tentative hands ghost over his chest makes him feel like he's going to explode.

She lets out a sigh, and he can't help pressing himself against her. She gasps and her hands travel up to the back of his head, smashing her lips against his with dizzying vigor.

He's drowning in Madge, her scent and taste and the feeling of her little hands in his hair and her body against his.

Her shirt's ridden up a little, and his thumb grazes her bare skin. They both shudder, and he goes back to kissing her neck. Her skin is so unbelievably, unbearably soft and he can barely handle it.

She's sighing his ear, and he has to grit his teeth and resist from what he really wants to do, which involves ripping her clothes off. He dips down, kissing her collarbone, as her hands run up and down his back. He sucks a bit harder at her skin, and her fingernails start to dig into his back.

He whispers something against her neck. Her hands go under his shirt, drifting over his abdomen and up to his chest. They're so small, but the way her nails ghost over his stomach makes him bite back a groan.

She exerts a barely-audible moan, but it's right into his ear, and he strains not to jerk against her. He's somehow ended up between her legs. He doesn't care how.

His hands travel up her sides, under the tips of his fingers hit the base of her bra. He pauses for a moment, but she just continues kissing him, so he takes this as a go ahead. His thumbs brush the cup of her bra -

And what he's actually doing hits him like a brick wall. Here he was, his hands up her shirt, out in the open. He had to slow things down - he was supposed to be in control. Why had he let things get this far, right in front of the  _Mayor's house_ with the  _mayor's very innocent daughter?_ It was probably because she'd pulled him down on top of her. How was a guy supposed to resist that?

He slides his hands back down until they're out from under her shirt. He pulls away slowly, sitting back up away from her. She sits up too, running a hand through her hair and not being able to meet his eyes.

Why did he stop, she wonders. She knew that he was much more experienced than her - maybe she was bad at it, or something. He seemed to be enjoying it while it was happening, but maybe he hadn't.

She sneaks a look at him, but his head is turned away.

She's kind of in awe over what just happened. She wanted things that were entirely inappropriate, with him. This hot, coiling feeling roared in her lower stomach, and she wanted him on top of her.

She internally shook her head at herself. She couldn't believe that she was thinking those things.

She brushes herself off, standing up and pulling Gale up with her. They stand, staring at each other again. But this time, Gale takes a step away from her.

"I should be getting home." He says slowly. He has this misted-over look in his eyes that she finds quite pleasant.

"Yes." She replies. But she doesn't want him to go.

He holds her gaze for another moment before re-tracing that step away and kissing her chastely. It's too short.

"I'll see you tomorrow." He says quickly as he walks away from her.

"I'll see you." She calls after him.

She watches him until he fully disappears into the distance, under the shade of the fruit tree, her fingers pressed to her lips. And she can't wait to see him again.

* * *


	10. Stars

His hands are black.

There are tiny patches, of course, where his skin shows through. But really, he's covered head to toe in soot.

He's been feeling like he's going to be sick since the moment he stepped into the rickety elevator packed too full for regulated capacity. The claustrophobic in him roared so loud he had to bite back a shout.

Thom and the other boys from his class are next to him, participating in the steady rhythm of a thousand pick axes hacking away at solid rock.

They do not speak. The older ones, the men who've got a few years on them, trade stories as if they've been numbed to the impending death they head for, whether it be from their lungs giving out or... an explosion.

It's like he can see his father next to him. It's eating him up inside quickly, like a gray flame. He'll travel to the same fate as his father, and his grandfather, and his great grand father did. The mines take lives. And barely anyone raises a shout, but the silent sufferers.

He craves the meadow or the woods and the fresh air and the silence and the sky.

He confided in Madge yesterday. About his contempt for where he is now. About his father and his fear and being trapped. They talked for hours at her kitchen table, until they heard Capitol guests stirring upstairs.

She listened. She comforted him. She showed up early this morning, a few feet from his house with a packed lunch and a kiss.

He holds onto her. Her blond hair lights the way for him today, in this dark hell he's forced to die in.

 

* * *

 

The walk home isn't too long - shorter than from school, but he'd much rather be coming from there. When he gets home, he sits down on the couch, forcing his face to stay impassive as every muscle in his body aches. He shrugs his boots off, catching a whiff of dinner his mother's making in the kitchen.

He's reminded that he really should make sure to get to the woods sometime next weekend, maybe some special bigger meal that would make up for yesterday when everyone had to skip breakfast in order to make sure they had dinner.

He rubs his temples in attempt to relieve the stress of the day's work, and closes his eyes.

"Tell me a story." Posy's light voice chirps.

Vick replies, "No, Posy." without even lifting his eyes from his book.

"Please?!" She begs, jumping up and down followed by her pigtails.

His mother leans in from the kitchen, and scoldingly tells him, "Vick, tell your sister a story."

"Mom! I'm reading!" He insists.

"Gale, will you tell me a story?" She asks hopefully, her eyes the size of full moons. He forces his eyes open, and finds Posy knelt next to the couch, pouting. "Please?"

He's exhausted, but he mutters, "Alright, Posy."

She squeals delightedly, jumping up on his lap as he props himself up against the arm. He doesn't flinch, because he doesn't want to make her upset. His mother sends him an appreciative smile and disappears.

"Once upon a time, there was... was a princess. And she was very pretty, but very poor - "

"Princesses aren't poor." Vick interjects from the table.

"Shut it Vick." Gale says flatly. "This princess happened to be - "

An impatient knock cuts off his voice. His mother wipes her hands off and exits the kitchen, opening the door slowly.

"Hello, can I help you?"

"Yes  _hello_ , Miss. We're here to interview Gale Hawthorne." A high-pitched, unfamiliar voice says at the door. Gale pries himself up out of his seat and arrives at the door next to his mother.

An array of disturbing colored people duck their heads into the house. They don't bother to hide their disdain.

"Why?" Hazelle asks politely.

"For the Games, of course! He's a friend of Katniss Everdeen's, yes?" The woman with the blindingly yellow dress says shrilly.

He finds himself sitting outside on the steps of his house, his mother standing next to him protectively, Rory keeping Vick and Posy in the house. The reporter, a man who has patches of lizard skin sewn starts his introduction into the camera that costs more than Gale will make in his entire life.

"I'm here with Gale Hawthorne, er...  _cousin_ of District 12 Tribute Katniss Ever - "

"Oh, I'm not her cousin." He interrupts. The reporter's shoulders flinch.

"Cut." He says irritatedly. He turns around to face Gale with his hands on his hips. "Look, kid, you're too... young and..." His eyes slide down Gale as a dog looking at a piece of meat. "... _male_ to be presented as a friend. We don't want anyone getting the wrong idea."

"What idea would that be?" He asks defensively.

"That she's got someone in her life that isn't her fellow Tribute Peeta Mellark."

The statement echoes around in his brain, but he shuts up and tries not to hold onto it. Katniss and... Mellark. He tries not to think about the declarations of love and the way she looked at him, almost like she wasn't pretending.

He should just cooperate - then they'll go away. He nods curtly at the reporter, and the reporter smiles broadly and turns back around.

"Action." The man behind the camera says.

"- of District 12 Tribute Katniss Everdeen!"

 

* * *

 

She taps her thigh, imagining her piano at home under her fingertips.

She does not think about this morning, a Capitol guest finishing the last of her favorite cake that she clearly saved for herself, and then her father scolding her for not being gracious enough.

Gracious? She's been more than gracious. She'd given up her house to a bunch of snobs that no matter how good things were for them would continue on with their bigot-comments and harsh laughter. She'd played her special music for them every night they'd asked, and was rewarded by them pointing out invisible mistakes.

No, she was fed up. But in the end, there was nothing else she could do except pick up her school bag and leave.

Since Gale had officially "graduated" and started work in the mines, she was back to sitting alone at lunch again. Besides that, she walked home alone, a luxury that she only had two weeks of before he left.

And now she was stuck waiting for the principal to finally show up on the second floor to unlock classroom 213. She had left her textbook under her desk after class. She waits (what feels like) twenty minutes before just giving up and leaving.

She uncaringly throws open the front doors of the schoolhouse, finding that most students had left. She squints and shields her eyes from the sun, was that - ?

Across the road, she sees Gale. She doesn't believe it, but there he is - in his mining uniform.

Next to him is the girl called Leevy, who she knows lives in the Seam, is talking to him. She's tall, in a pretty, skinny sort of way, with her hair pulled back in a ponytail that dangles far down her back. Madge watches him say something back to her, and the girl's hand come up to to hold his forearm.

His head turns and his eyes meet Madge's, her schoolbag dangling off one hand and skidding across the ground.

He says a quick goodbye to Leevy and jogs across the street to Madge. The girl stares for a moment before being on her way, leaving the two alone in the empty schoolyard.

"Hey." He greets her, before carefully leaning down and giving her a kiss on the cheek.

"Um, hi." She replies flusteredly, pushing her bag back over her shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

There are hints of a sheepish smile on his face. "I have a break. I wanted to come and see you."

She allows herself to smile back, and everything making her fingers curl in agitation releases. He came to surprise her, just because.

But something on her face must have betrayed her annoyance, as he steps back reflexively and says, "That wasn't anything, back there, with - "

"It's fine." She says. He doesn't want to deny it too much, because he knows then it will seem like it was something. And it wasn't - not really. Leevy had asked him why she hadn't seen him down near the slag heap in a while. That was all.

He doesn't know if he believes her, but he replies, "Ok."

Something is bothering her, he can tell. Even though she's smiling, there's a crease between her eyebrows that tells him she's grappling with something. He's not sure if he should ask her what it is, though.

"Sorry I took so long coming out." She apologizes. "I left my textbook in Mrs. Kramny's room, and I was waiting for someone to open it for me."

"It's alright." He looks up at the sun. "But I've got to get back, my second shift starts soon."

She looks even more disappointed when he says that, and an unsettled feeling turns his stomach.

Her hand sneaks down to hold his, and she steps up to rest her chin on his chest.

"Tonight, maybe, can we hang out?" She asks hopefully. "I just... I don't really want to be at home right now."

"Sure. I'll be home at seven, so maybe I come around sometime after that?"

"What will we do?" Her voice perks up a little, and he tilts his chin down to kiss her temple. He knows he probably shouldn't be doing this, there are plenty of people who could see (and he was never too into PDA in the first place) but he can't seem to stop.

Another kiss and she starts to smile a little more.

"I don't care. Whatever you want to do." He says quietly.

 

* * *

 

She walks in an uneven line, she didn't know where she was going. He held her hand, though, and guided her down the darkened road. She had stayed holed up in the back room until he'd come to pick her up, which he did.

She loved holding hands with him. His hands were different - muscular, but lithe. They were hunters hands, but starting to become callused from his job.

She lets him steady her as she stares up at the sky.

"The stars are beautiful." She says.

"They are." He replies, and she can tell its mostly for her benefit. For him, they were for navigation, something practical. A source of myths and stories about the patterns of the way they fell in the great grid of the sky.

"You can't see the stars in the Capitol." She tells him.

"Wait - you've been to the Capitol?"

She nods. "Once, when I was little. I don't remember much about it, except that when you looked up, all you saw were city lights - buildings and fireworks and all this unnatural, too-bright light. But you couldn't see the stars."

"Then at least we've got one thing the Capitol hasn't." He remarks.

She breathes a laugh, before she asks, "How was today?"

"The same." He says tightly.

They arrive at the meadow, still holding hands.

The grass is tall, untamed, uncut. It tickles her ankles and calves.

It's dark, and for a split second she worries about some wild animal coming to attack them. But she trusts Gale, and pushes away the visual of him having to spear a rogue goat.

He leads her to the space where the grass is the thickest, near one of the lone trees growing above them. They lay on their backs, shoulders touching, fingers still intertwined.

She's quiet. She understands the meadow isn't a place for noise, the thin blanket of pressurized silence over them. He rubs his right shoulder, and she can tell he's in pain.

She worries about him. She can't help it. She thinks about how often could go wrong while he's stuck down there. A wall could cave in on him, an explosion, even a severe coughing fit from the coal dust. He's in numb danger every day.

Minutes pass, watching the sky. Suddenly, Gale turns onto his side, and wraps her up in his arms. He clings to her, like she's going to blow away if he lets her go. She lets him hold onto her, these moments of tenderness and vulnerability are new.

She reaches up to skim his cheek with her thumb.

His eyes are closed, and the lines across his face from everything make him look too old. He looks so tired, weak, weathered.

He's wanting her. He's needing her.

She knows she can't make everything ok.

But in this little secret moment between them, it feels like maybe she can.

 


	11. Sleep

Her fingers play with the grown bracelet around her wrist. She doesn't wear it out - she's afraid it might break. But she puts it on before she goes to bed, so she can look at how it looks on her before she falls asleep.

The Games are coming to an end, though not at all mercifully. There are eight tributes left - Katniss and Peeta both being among them. Madge doesn't want to root for one or the other - Katniss had been her lunch friend, Peeta her convenient childhood comrade.

He was nice, she remembers. When their parents would attend the same social gatherings, him, Delly, and her would sneak off and play games, pretending and darting back in and out between the guests. He almost always let them pick who they would be - he acted as his fair share of princes and kings. He was a kind boy. A sweet boy.

She never imagined him to last as long as he did.

She flips over onto her stomach, turning her face sideways on her pillow. She knows it isn't a very ladylike position, when she was younger she even had Isla tell her that she looked like a dead fish when she slept. But it's the way she's most comfortable, and curling up into the fetal position only happens when she cries herself to sleep.

She wants to be happy. She wants to draw as much happiness as she can from the way things are right now. That isn't easy when her father's home and her mother's relapsing and the Capitol guests are eating all the bread and strawberries and people are starving to death every day silently.

The night is short, a summer night that is only a brief pause for the day's sun.

 

* * *

 

Across town, in the Seam, he lays on his stomach as well, feet sticking off the too-short bed. He can't get comfortable, too tired to fall asleep. His head aches, his shoulder muscles ache too loudly to ignore.

The days counting down to when Katniss will die are decreasing as the strain on his heart increases. He thinks about her more often each day, updates himself on her current welfare, what supplies she has left, that sort of thing.

He still thinks of her as the girl with the braids he met in the woods. Catnip.

Prim's third interview just aired on television last night. She's beloved by many in the Seam, and it's clear why. She's just... good. She put on a brave face, a smile as armor. That's why she keeps getting so many interviews. Even the reporters from the Capitol love her.

He kept his promise. He worked extra to go the Everdeen family dinner each night. It had been taking its toll on him physically, but every time he went he was reminded of the days before. Of Katniss.

He feels rotten inside. Madge was in his head again too. Soft and gentle and sweet.

What if by some miracle, Katniss did come back? Would he still feel the same way about Madge?

He felt like a traitor. Him and Katniss didn't have anything official, not really, but she was his. That was always the way things were. They looked out for each other.

What was love anyway? Was it heat? Passion? Or comfort and dependence? Shared interests?

He flips over onto his back, staring at the cracks in the ceiling that get bigger everyday. Another thing he needs to fix. It was summer, so it wouldn't be a necessity until the fall chill blew in. A star winked high above in the sky.

He didn't want to think anymore. It was too much work.

 

* * *

 

They had a television brought in a couple days ago. It's huge, certified most expensive thing in all of District 12, and takes up almost half of the living room's back wall. Due to its size, the couch is shifted up uncomfortably too close to the screen, the back hitting against the table, leaving barely enough space to squeeze in and out of the room at all. It's got two speakers on both sides too - the better to hear the screaming and crying with.

She sits behind them, perched on a stool Isla dragged in from the kitchen for her. She wouldn't even be here, but she's played sick one too many times, and when she's tried to bow out again, her father had given her a look, and she became the docile lamb she hated. His eyes had said what he'd voiced the night before, "Keep them happy, Margaret. We need them to stay happy here."

The intricate hats and hair and accessories the Capitol guests wear block half her view. In a time like this, she's grateful for their vanity.

She does not, however, miss a second of the scene unfolding in front of her.

The little girl from District 11, allied with Katniss, is caught in a net trap. Katniss appears - the little girl shouts her name - and the boy from District 1 spears her through her stomach.

She bites down hard on her lip to keep from letting out a scream. The Capitol guests do not do the same, instead, they gasp dramatically, turning to one another and whispering.

Katniss, the camera going in for a close-up on her face, immediately lines up her bow and shoots the District 1 tribute with an arrow in the neck. The guests lean back and one even lets out an exclamation. The boy falls.

The girl is still half-alive. Madge watches through misty eyes as Katniss cuts her loose from the net. They hold hands. Katniss tells her that she's destroyed all the food.

Clever Katniss. Her plan worked.

Katniss starts to sing. She always had a nice voice. The lullaby, about the flowers and the meadow. It makes Madge's heart ache, and she feels her eyes start to burn with hot tears. It's a District 12 song.

She has to keep them back. She can't cry here.

"It's so tragic about that young girl. What was her name? Ro?" The woman wearing the pink and yellow hair flower announces loudly.

"Rue." It's the first thing she's said all night, and she struggles not to shout that the girl's name was Rue, and she died for your entertainment, so the least you could do was remember her name.

They all turn and look at her with varying levels of disdain, and Yvette replies, "Yes.  _Rue_."

Her father cuts his eyes at her, but she doesn't care that she's taken a step too far.

She closes her eyes, and imagines herself playing the song on the piano in the next room. It's a quiet song, intimate, to be sung to someone you love.

 

* * *

 

He goes hunting. It's strenuous, but the fresh air fills his lungs and clear his mind. He's an animal now, a wolf, and he doesn't think. He's all instinct, in the cover of late afternoon and the beginning of night. He's checked the traps, dinner mostly covered by what had been caught there. But now he hunts for something extra, something special to bring home.

He's tired of watching his family eat berries and stale meat for every meal (and they've downgraded to only eating twice a day, to try to make what they've got stretch).

Also, a dark part of him wants to hunt. To bring a knife down on an animal, blood on his hands, so that he can pretend that he's doing something that matters. He can pretend that he's saving the world from the Capitol. The rabbit is President Snow and the Gamemakers and his boss at the mine.

He stares at what he's done after, hacked a perfectly good piece of meat to shreds. He's so angry, it scares him.

He drops the rabbit where he stands, and walks back the way he came, carcasses thrown carelessly over his shoulder. His vest is hot, and his skin is sticky with thick sweat. He grits his teeth.

He walks. He has to keep walking, he doesn't know where he's going, but he does not want to stand still.

It isn't long before he finds himself standing a half a mile away from Madge's doorstep.

He stares hazily at her back porch, the mowed grass, the painted white wood. The lights are on in all the rooms except one, on the second floor, and the curtains are drawn.

He hasn't been able to see her in days, and he misses her more than he expected to.

But he walks away, back to the Seam, back to his house. Posy hugs him as he walks through the door, Vick and Rory holler their hellos, and his mother kisses his cheek. The lights are on in his house.

His fingers are still trembling, as he pushes his trappings onto the tiny table in the kitchen. His mother touches his wrist, asks him if something's wrong. He says nothing, drifts into his room, flops onto his bed.

He closes his eyes, but he can not sleep.

 


	12. Reality

The Hob is always dusty. Frequented by miners, their boots and heavy shoes still caked with coal dust, as well as their hands and cheeks. No one ever bothers cleaning up because... well, it's the Hob. It had a personality all its own. It was the exhausted, blackened soul of District 12.

Today it's bustling. It's Sunday, the day after payday. People pass and jostle his shoulders. He doesn't care.

He's selling today. He's got a pocket full of change already, but it's an opportunity he's not going to pass up. He hopes that he might save up enough to get something extra, a precious loaf of bread maybe. Posy's birthday is coming up too, and he's seen her stare glassy-eyed at the porcelain doll missing one of her arms.

He always talked about running away. Fantasies about living in the woods addled his brain.

He would have built a cabin. Small, to stay undetected, but sturdy. Cozy. Hunting for food, not having to worry about time to get away or being too fatigued to make the long journey to even try. No more wheezing from the air or coal-crusted clothing. No more Games.

It's different, now, though. It's changed. He sees... he sees Madge with him.

A rational, large part of his brain tells him that that's insane, she'd never trade her mansion for whatever ramshackle shelter he could make from tree branches. She sure as hell didn't know how to hunt, didn't know which berries to eat and which were poisonous, couldn't tell time by the sun or direction from the moss on the trees. He tells himself this.

Yet still, a secret part of him still adds her in between the trees and the sunshine.

And then he's confused. It was supposed to Katniss with him. Katniss knew how to do all of those things, and would probably last much longer and be an asset to him for a sustainable livelihood. Why doesn't he see her anymore?

He shakes his head. There's no point in even thinking about it anyway, like Katniss said a long time ago, they "wouldn't make it five miles". Alone, he probably couldn't make it three.

 

* * *

 

The morning is cool, but melts into a humid summer day. No school.

She spends the day at the piano, hoping that if she plays enough, the restless feeling at the pit of her stomach would go away.

She does so much worrying these days. Her mother, Gale, Katniss, her father. The names swim around in her head. It makes her eyes droop and her fingers slow. She takes her hands off the keys, cracks her knuckles, and tries again.

Still, something in the notes sound... off.

Gale comes over later. He's free today, and happy. She smiles when he sits down without an invitation on one of the stools in the kitchen. He seems to be becoming more comfortable with her house, which gives her a little burst of something good.

She takes the pitcher out of the refrigerator, and pours him a glass. She slides it over the counter. He takes it warily, but then drinks.

"This is delicious." He declares, holding it up and inspecting it closely. "What is it?"

"Lemonade." She replies.

He nods. Takes another drink. She pours a glass for herself and then puts away whats left back into the refrigerator. She straightens up, grabbing the corner of the counter for support.

They're both quiet. There's an elephant in the room, and she's not very eager to confront it.

Still, she knows that she has to.

"Did you watch last night?" She asks quietly.

He freezes, glass to his lips. He puts it back down. Grips his forehead briefly, wipes sweat off his upper lip. She waits in agony for him to reply, before he finally does.

"Yeah." He replies gruffly.

"They could both come home." She says, staring at her forearm like a coward. She can't look into his eyes about this. "They've got a good chance together. As a team."

"But there's still both tributes left from District 2. The Careers." He counters.

She finally looks up at him. He's not looking at her. His eyes are focused on his boots, and she realizes she doesn't want to see how he really feels about it.

"Yes." She replies shortly.

The unanswered questions hang in the air between them like thick smoke.

His eyes travel up from the ground, and she watches them widen as they land on the television in the living room over.

"Shit." Escapes his mouth.

She takes the chance to change the subject. "They had it shipped in specially. Wanted to make sure they didn't miss anything for the big finale."

He moves to nod again, but doesn't.

"My dad will be home soon." She says finally. She feels like there's a chance she might cry, and she desperately doesn't want him to witness that.

He stares at her hard for a moment, before he rises from his seat. But instead of leaving, he walks around the counter and holds her face in his hands.

And then he kisses her. His lips are gentle, and remind her of the dark meadow under the stars.

Her doubts creep back into the corners of her head, and she thinks, no, she's just being paranoid. He was still here kissing her when there was now a chance Katniss could come home. Why was he still here if he still loved Katniss? _  
_

She shoves everything to the back of her mind and focuses on her hands winding through Gale's messy dark hair.

He pulls away, and kisses her cheek.

"Your skin is so soft." He mumbles against her ear.

"Thanks?"

He actually laughs. She bites her lip, and kisses him again.

The clock strikes five. Her father should be home about now.

She breaks away from him reluctantly. He almost  _pouts_ , which is so severely out of character for him that she can't help laughing.

"What?" He asks.

Trying to swallow her laughter, she shakes her head. "Nothing. Just... are you... are you pouting?"

"No." He says, but his arms wrap around her and presses his lips to her neck. He smells too good, and she misses him during the week too much. Her bare feet trip on top of his boots and she pushes him away.

"You've got to go. My dad's going to walk through the front door any minute."

She leads him by the hand to the back door, and he stealthily took the opportunity to watch her figure from the back. He kisses her once more, and then lets go of her hand and jumps down the back porch steps.

He's almost to the street before he realizes in half-horror that he's left his bag sitting in the Undersee's kitchen. The bag with everything he earned that day and the week before. After debating the best course of action, he turns around and goes up to the back door.

He knocks twice. Madge comes to the door a second later, an uneasy look on her face.

"Hey."

"What?" She asks quickly.

"I left my bag - "

"Just a second." She cuts him off, darting back into the kitchen. She disappears around the corner as he struggles not to run away without it. She said her father would be home, and the last thing he wanted was to have the mayor see him -

"Hawthorne." A tense, male voice says.

Through the screen door, he sees the Mayor stride through the hallway. He's a tall, balding man, wearing a suit with his tie undone. He has the same eyes as Madge's, but his are hidden behind glasses he's never seen him wear before.

"Sir."

He looks at him expectantly, asking, "Is there something you need from me?"

Gale fidgets for a minute. Think, Hawthorne.

"No, I - "

Luckily, Madge reappears, opening the door haphazardly and almost hitting him in the face while shoving his bag at him. Gale takes it, and looks to Madge.

"Bye Gale." She says pointedly, her eyes looking apologetic.

"Bye Madge." He says evenly, and walks down the porch steps as fast as he can without running. His mind is whirring and spinning so fast he thinks it might pop off. He desperately wants to look back, but he knows he can't.

He's fucked up everything.

 

* * *

 

She turns quickly and makes to go upstairs, but her father catches her with a stern call of her name. She freezes on the stairs, knowing that that getaway will never work.

Her entire stomach sinks.

"What was that?" He asks.

She has no idea what to say. There are no excuses, nothing she's bought from him today, Gale's out of school - there's no science project to pin it on. She's got nothing.

"Gale Hawthorne. He sells us strawberries?" She tries.

"What was he doing here?"

She urges herself to speak, say anything to make him go away, wishing she'd forced Gale out earlier. She can only manage to gulp.

His face changes from tired to angry to dejected to guarded. He straightens up his shoulders, and she knows she's in for a lecture.

"Whatever is going on between you and that boy has to stop. Now." The 'now' echoes around the house like funeral bells.

She stares at the ground.

He knows. How could he not? She's been caught.

There's nothing she can do. But she can't bear the thought of not seeing Gale anymore.

"He's the only thing that keeps me going." She blurts.

Silence rings around the room. A minute passes.

"Madge."

"I love him!" She yells spitefully.

As soon as it comes out of her mouth, she finds it's true. It startles her, she doesn't think she's ever said that about anyone but her mother and the man standing in front of her. That was only when she was younger though, when her father didn't come home late and beaten down, when Isla wasn't the only person that cared when she had a cold or when some kid picked on her at school.

"No, you don't. And he does not love you. I'm sorry."

"How do you know!? You don't even know him!"

She knows she must sound irrational, but she believes it. She knows what her father sees when he sees Gale.

A long time ago, he had a plan to bring the Seam out of poverty. She thinks he still has that, somewhere, but he's seen too much. But instead of breaking down completely, like her mother, he numbed himself. He ignores what he can't handle and pretends it doesn't exist.

Still, deep down inside, she believes her father is a good man.

But when he sees Gale, he sees someone below him. Dirty. Starving. Another dusty face selling him contraband food. What he says next proves it.

"The only reason he is showing interest in you is because of me. Because of our wealth."

"What are you saying?" Her voice is cold and deadly quiet to her ears. It's a stupid question, and she knows the answer before she even asks it.

The mayor took a deep breath, running a hand through the remaining hairs he had left still growing on his head. "It's no secret his family is in need. He's... not good for you. If he – "

"How the hell can you say that?! What do you know of love? You don't love my mother." She yells vindictively.

His mouth crumples. Then something pangs against her heart. He looks old beyond his years, his suit sagging around the shoulders.

"Of course I love your mother."

"She hasn't left her room in days, and all you've been doing is schmoozing Capitol guests and manipulating me into helping you!"

"Stop it, Margaret. Now."

All she can do is run upstairs to her room and cry, like the  _silly little girl_ she is. She ran into her room and threw herself down on her bed. There's nothing else she can say to him, he has nothing left to say to her.

 

* * *

 

He should get up off the porch. He needs to, any minute anyone could spot him, and he'd be in more trouble than the deep shit he's already landed himself in.

But he can't. He's afraid his legs won't work if he gets up and tries to walk.

He had tried to get away, but found himself frozen in his tracks when he heard the yelling from inside. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop, and stumbled into a conversation that sent him sinking down to the ground.

_He's after our wealth - Not good for you - Family's in need -_

He scratches behind his ear violently, knowing that if he impulsively kicked the ground (as he desperately wanted to), he'd be found.

He cannot even revel in the realization that Madge yelled that she loved him. His rational brain blacks out the feeling and focuses on fact. Fact: the mayor had the power to destroy his and his family's entire lives. A quick holler up to anyone related to the Capitol about the strawberries, and... and anything could happen. Their livelihood, his mother's and Rory's and Vick's and Posy's and even Prim's and Mrs. Everdeen's rested on his shoulders. The small income he brought in from work, the extra from selling, food from hunting.

If he was to be gone, they would all fall with him.

He already had fallen. He'd let himself believe in something that didn't exist. Always, always, he'd relied on the cold, concrete facts of the world he lived in. This time, with this girl, he'd ignored them.

He'd let himself "follow his heart", or whatever shit he told himself at night to stop from acknowledging what it really was: giving into temptation. Taken the cookie from the cookie jar. He'd eaten that god damn apple, and now he had to get the hell out of the garden.

He slowly got up, making sure his bag was still on his shoulder and his head was still attached to his body. Walked out of town to the dirt road, trading white-picket fences for broken down chicken-wire and silver for tin.

He never belonged with her. The beautiful, soft, sunshine rich girl from town. The mayor's daughter. Off-limits. He was kidding himself. He belonged with someone of his own kind, someone with the dark hair and hunched shoulders of the Seam. Someone that he could actually give something to. He could never give anything to the girl who already had it all.


	13. Walk

Younger boys running around in ripped shorts and no shirts, skinny chests blackened with dirt. An old man sits on a tree stump towards the back of the Hob, his gray beard littered with grease and shreds of dead leaves. A thin, withering woman leans against the outside wall, looking faint. Only the lucky ones wear shoes. Thinning hair, chipped cups, a baby too hungry to cry.

He'd been desensitized to all this early. He sees it every morning, every afternoon, every night. Hunger and pain, his two constant companions.

He is numb. He feels nothing today. His mind does not think, the gears that so often whir inside his head are stopped. He doesn't cringe as the rickety elevator shakes on the way down to the mines. He doesn't feel the furious hatred when he sees the freight trains pull in sporting "CAPITOL COAL" across the side. He doesn't check the television in the front room for stats on the tributes that have died today. He doesn't breathe a sigh of relief when the day is finally over and the five o'clock bell rings.

He doesn't feel anything.

He walks around with glazed over eyes, trusting his feet to lead him where he needs to go. His body feels dirty and itchy, he wants to go home. He wants a warm bath, and a warm piece of bread. But he has neither. He's got an axe in his hand and no escape. The work does serve to distract him, though, and once he falls into the steady rhythm of the hacking echoing off the rocks, he lets his mind go blank.

 

* * *

 

She wakes up and sees the morning sun through puffy, red-rimmed eyes. She sits up, her neck stiff and shoulders hunched. Her eyes stare blankly at the broken lamp on the ground, the shoe that fell hard after it hit the wall with a thump.

She gets ready for school slowly, like with every movement she has to move through molasses. When she's finally got to go downstairs in order to leave the house, she seriously contemplates trying to jump out the window and scale the wall instead of having to look at her father's face. But in the end, she manages to slip past the outer room undetected.

The warm air makes her feel sick. She decides to catch Gale at the end of the day, just to apologize for what happened the night before.

Her fingers jump to the strap of her bag, and she tries to put the words of last night away.

 

* * *

 

It's dark when he gets out today - hold up on the elevator, and he ended up having to wait almost a half an hour past the end of the day to leave. He starts down the path, but stops abruptly when he sees Madge leaning against a tree a few paces down the road.

The first thought that jumps into his mind is that she was waiting alone, and it's not safe for her to be around here by herself. A powerless, rich girl is the perfect target for the devils lurking in the shadows of the shacks. The Seam wasn't safe for the mayor's daughter.

And then he remembers everything, and he bites down on his tongue hard. He can't just walk away and leave her standing there, and knows that he's got to do what he's got to do. With sluggish steps, he makes his way to where she is.

Her eyes flick up from the ground, and when they land on him they smile.

"Hi." She says quietly. She holds a half-eaten apple in her left hand.

He lets her hug him, but doesn't return the gesture. She feels thin and breakable against his body.

She pulls away, and her eyes look sad.

"It isn't safe for you to be here." He says tightly.

She bites her lip, staring at the ground. "Sorry." She replies lamely.

A brief silence passes, and he tells her he'll walk her home. He knows he shouldn't, he can't face seeing her father again, but he can't let her walk through the Seam in the dark without protection. She nods, and they start walking.

A wild dog howls from somewhere far away, and she jumps almost a foot in the air. His hand automatically reaches out to steady her, and she squeezes it thankfully. She catches her breath, and chokes out a "sorry". He says it's fine.

They walk in agonizing silence, before she finally breaks it.

"Sorry about yesterday. With my father."

He nods. She walks next to him, her hand brushing against his once before lacing her fingers through his.

Against his better judgement, he holds her hand. It makes everything hurt more, touching her.

She doesn't say anything else, and eventually they get out of the Seam and the bigger, nicer houses of town start coming into view. She stops down the street from her house, explaining quietly, "I don't want the neighborhood gossips to see us."

The words slam into him like an oncoming wave, smacking hard across his back.

"Want to come in?" She asks, looking at him through her lashes.

"It's late." He says tightly.

"You can stay the night."

 _Stay the night_. Her hair falls in front of her face, and she tucks it behind her ears as she looks at him expectantly. Her eyes are so full, and he wants more than anything to kiss her, follow her upstairs to her bedroom, make her understand how lovely she is -

"No." He says forcefully. "I… I can't."

"My father's not home. He's at the Justice Building, he'll probably be there all night - "

"Madge, what are we doing?" He cuts her off, and her mouth freezes rigidly at his words.

"What?"

He takes a deep breath. "I think it's time I get back to real life."

"Real life?" She replies dumbly.

"I don't think we should spend any more time with each other."

A long silence passes, her eyes on the ground, hair covering her features from sight. It's down and loose, the way he likes it best. Every second of silence that passes drives him farther into agony.

"Why?" She finally asks brokenly.

He looks away from her, past her head at the shoe store, where the storekeeper is turning off the lights.

"We just shouldn't."

Her arms cross, hugging across her body, and her voice trembles. "Is this... is this because of - "

She trails off, and he isn't sure he wants to know what she was going to say next.

"It'd be good if we just went back to not knowing each other at all."

"You don't... you can't - " She whispers desperately, her voice cracking with emotion. She reaches out softly to touch his arm.

"Gale?"

He steps back away from her, his chest constricting so powerfully he feels like he's drowning.

He has to turn away.

Her big, wet eyes well up with tears, and he has to shove his hands into his pockets to stop himself from pulling her into his arms and telling her that he was sorry and he didn't want to do this and maybe they could last a little longer, dodge everything for another day -

She's finally the one to walk away. Her steps are slow and deliberate as she moves down the road.

Being with her was like being in a dream.

But the dream had been cruelly taken from him, and he watched it disappear as she walked back into her house. Walked back into her own life, and out of his.

 


	14. Clouds

"Eat, love."

Her chin comes up off her hands and she looks at Isla through half-closed eyes. She feels guilty, seeing Isla standing over the stove with fresh bread for breakfast and a worried expression.

"I'm sorry. It looks delicious, I'm just... not very hungry."

Isla puts the pan down, rounds the table, and presses the back of her hand to Madge's forehead. "Are you sure you're not feeling sick?"

"No, I'm fine." She says, for the thousandth time in the past couple days.

Isla does not ask her what was wrong, and she is grateful. Her father avoided her eyes. The Capitol citizens navigate around her without too much attention.

She holds her forehead between fists.

"You should get to school, you don't want to be late." Isla reminds her.

Without another word, Madge picks up her bag and starts out the door.

The sun has been covered by clouds, and there's a humid feeling in the air. She combs her hair back roughly with the tips of her fingers, that are sharp. She glances down at her nails, which have been bitten down to the nail beds.

The illusion of fall starts to creep into the atmosphere, but no one pays attention to anything but the Games now. They're about to end, and still, both Twelve tributes are alive. It's never happened before that both have survived this long.

She rubs her tired eyes. Her mother was crying loudly last night, her father had been occupied. She'd gone to take care of her, and her mother had clung to her like a lifeline, and she wasn't strong enough. Her head ached, and the circles under her eyes deepened with the passing minutes.

In school, she takes her regular spot, blocking out her surroundings. Delly sits next to her, chatting casually about Finn Porter, but when Delly looks at her expectantly to respond, she can't.

"Is everything ok?" Delly asks, but Madge knows she's only asking to be polite. Delly was sweet, but she knew that they weren't close enough for her to be affected. Combined with the fact that telling the truth would make tears fall, she decides to lie.

"Of course." She replies.

 

* * *

 

When she was younger, she used to sleepwalk. She remembers waking up on the living room floor in the early morning, not knowing how she got there. Her father even said once she managed to get all the way to the door before he asked what she was doing, and she woke up. That was a long time ago, though. Gradually, she grew out of it.

She's awake when she walks through the living room tonight. She can't sleep, her eyes close and her body pleads to relax, but her mind won't shut up.

She curls up on the windowsill, blinking her dry eyes and using them to follow a cat-like shadow some feet away, darting across the road.

Not for the first time, she wishes she didn't care so much. Maybe she could be like how he seems, cold and harsh and unfeeling, with a hard exterior shell and a permanent mask. When she caught a glimpse of Rory down the hallway, her heart wouldn't drop. She wouldn't feel jealous that Vick still got to see him. When she breathed in the scent of woodsmoke and apples, she wouldn't shiver and feel like she was close to falling apart completely.

She wishes she wasn't this weak.

She used to cry far too much. A stubbed toe would result in almost an hour of sobbing. She thinks she's gotten a little better, but these days it's like she's six again.

Stupidly, she tries to make excuses for the reasons he actually broke up with her. No,  _dumped_  her. But in the end, it doesn't matter why. The only thing that matters is that he wants nothing to do with her anymore. He won't even let them be friends.

She finds her eyes floating over around the room.

The flower sits, wilting in the vase. It's stem droops, and fallen petals liter the table around it.

It's dead.

She stares at it for a vague amount of time, before she starts to see it mocking her. The symbolic nature of it all - the flower he gave her is now dead. The love -  _no_  - the whatever-they-had ran its course. It burnt out. He was  _done_  with her.

Before she can ever understand what she's doing, she gravitates toward it, seizing the vase in her grasp and smashing it against the floor. The shrill and biting sound of pottery breaking seems to almost shake the house and the ground under her feet - she stumbles from the momentum and finds herself reeling back, falling onto the couch limply.

There's a pause, a surround-sound silence, before the door to the room opens, and Madge can feel someone standing in the doorway.

"I heard a sound." Her father's voice says from behind her. It's hushed, a quiet and soft question. But she doesn't have the energy to turn around and face him. "Is everything ok?"

Her mouth can't move to respond.

He stills a few minutes, before she hears the floorboard squeak and his steps ascend up the stairs outside.

 

* * *

 

It's as if there's a ticking clock looming, obscuring the sky over where he stands. There aren't any stars tonight - the sky is cloudy.

He grits his teeth, and lets the arrow fly. It arches, but hits a foot away from his target. The bird flies off out of the branch, and he fights the urge to yell in frustration.

Seemingly without his consent, his body sinks to the ground. He drops his head, holding it between his knees. He needs to bring in some game, anything at all, he'd even take wild dog at this point. Dogs haven't got much viable meat - but the cupboards had run dry, and Greasy Sae mentioned a week ago that she'd take some bone for a discount to make jewelry, hadn't she?

He spends an indeterminate amount of time between the trees, before he gives up and sneaks back over the fence into legal territory.

He goes home from his hunting trip today empty handed. When he reaches his house, he slams the door open, forgetting how late it is.

Vick's white, frightened face pokes out from the doorway into the bedroom, his hands curled around one of Gale's broken arrows. Gale's muscles relax responsibly when he sees.

"Go back to bed, Vick." He says as softly as he can.

Vick creeps out into the room, still a cautious distance away from Gale. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Gale answers automatically, slumping his body down onto the dirty couch behind him.

"It's late." Vick says obviously.

"I was hunting."

"Why?"

"Because I need to."

"No, I mean why this late?"

Gale takes off his boots, throwing them almost violently in the corner. "Didn't have any other time this week."

"Have you heard how Katniss is doing?"

Gale doesn't reply. Vick moves to sit next to him on the couch, leaning against the arm.

"The only people left are her, Peeta, and the boy tribute from District 2."

The information sinks in slowly, and hits Gale's stomach like a rock. Different feelings slide past his eyes in a matter of seconds, but he can't seem to form words with his mouth or vocalize them.

 

* * *

 

The Games end.

They had all watched, with bated breath, as to what would happen after the figurative bomb dropped. Dashing Peeta refused to kill his beloved Katniss, preferring self-sacrifice, but she didn't -  _couldn't_  - live without him and they had decided to die together. Then, at the last second, the game makers called off the switched rule change, and there had been - for the first time ever - two victors.

"And, ladies and gentlemen, that officially concludes the 74th Annual Hunger Games!" The announcer booms from the television. He rambles off the various sponsors, the arrangements for the victory tour, and merchandise that will be released in the near future.

They're coming home.

The Capitol guests shriek and squeal, hug each other, rave about how the Games get better ever year. Her father smiles politely, Isla remains apathetic, returning to the kitchen silently.

From her seat towards the back, she can see the post-game wrap-up and the banners of fans who were watching live from the Capitol.

She can't move.


	15. Before

The train station is packed, crowded to the brim with almost everyone from District 12, from the Seam and town. Prim is bouncing on her toes and even Mrs. Everdeen has a smile on her face today. The sun is shining, and there isn't a cloud in the sky.

Posy can't stand still, and squeezes his hand every few minutes in anticipation. Rory stands close to Prim, talking to her excitedly, though she isn't paying much attention. Vick's with his mother, both grinning. From his spot, he can also see the baker and his wife, with Peeta's brothers standing a few feet away. The mayor is here too, but Gale doesn't look long enough to see if he has anyone with him.

Everyone's in their best clothes. Reaping clothes. Except today they're not worn by bodies shaking with fear and despair, they're worn by people who have become triumphant. Worn with a smile.

His mind can't wrap around what's happening today. He made peace with the idea that he'd never see her again, that once he was dragged from the Justice Building that she'd be gone for good. But today he was going to see her. And she'd be safe and sound and maybe they could all just get back to normal.

 

* * *

 

There she is. Sitting quietly on the rock. With her bow. Waiting. Just like before.

After the train station, she'd been whisked away to the village, and much to his dismay, he hadn't had an opportunity to speak to her. He saw her from afar, but they'd finally found some time to reconnect.

And here she was.

They don't have to be different now, he thinks -  _he_ doesn't have to be different. He can be like before the Games, before Peeta... before everything.

He can love Katniss. Like the way he did before. Stubborn, passionate, fiery Katniss. His best friend. The girl on fire.

She throws her arms around him. She smells like she always did, and it's comforting. That hasn't changed.

He can love her. He  _will_ love her.

He holds her in his arms and squeezes his eyes shut, breathing in the familiar, nostalgic smell of Katniss in the woods. It brings him back to when he was fourteen, fresh from the death of his father, trying to catch game in these rickety, poorly-made traps he'd fashioned from chickenwire. She was so scrawny then, but sharp too, and pretty.

He kisses her.

And then he pulls away. He looks at her, looking at him.

"I had to do that. At least once." He says, and then he leaves.

 

* * *

 

Katniss does not say anything for weeks after.

They see each other, but he can't seem to bring up the kiss.

He doesn't want to talk about it, for a reason he's not sure he wants to think about.

 

* * *

 

Katniss isn't in school, but then again, it was juvenile to think she would be.

She actually sees her a lot more now than before - with Katniss living in the Victor's village, in town. They have even talked, briefly.

It's nice.

She forces herself not to project her pathetic, heart-broken feelings onto Katniss. She knows Katniss has been through hell and back, and so she plays the piano for her one day, and lets Katniss tell her that she plays beautifully.

She cries for herself at night, though. That she's the type of rotten person that can hate someone who's gone through so much. She wishes she could be bigger, get over it, but she can't.

The victory tour comes into the near future, which makes Madge feel even worse for harboring any negative feelings about Katniss. She can barely imagine having to go through the Games themselves - to come home with all these terrible, frightening images, and even after living and surviving through it all, to have to go back into that atmosphere. To have to smile and wave and do interviews and act, and then to have to mentor someone else. It's no wonder the only victor from District Twelve is a raging alcoholic.

She hugs her knees to her chest, resting against the headboard of her bed. The Capitol guests have cleared out now, the house reverts back to a muted silence.

Her mother has calmed down, at least for the time being, which is a relief. During the Games, it's hysterical crying, angry sobs, the kind that wrack the walls around her. But then they end, and she retreats back into her silent ghostly identity.

Madge shuts her eyes. She's a rotten person inside, really. Thinking about her mother this way. Not being able to smile for Katniss.

She wishes she could talk to someone about it. But she can't. There isn't anyone anymore.

 

* * *

 

The next day she goes with Isla to pick up bread at the Mellark's store, and sees Peeta icing something in the back room. Isla moves around the ordering counter and speaks with his mother, and Madge finds herself calling him over.

Peeta dusts off his hands and walks, slowly, over to where Madge stands.

He was always a kind boy. A sweet boy. The sort of boy that, when he was a baby, all the mothers cooed over. He was the boy who always did the polite thing. She remembers when he was six and scraped his knee, and hid tears from his older brothers.

His face smiles at her, but the blue eyes that used to be so...  _good_  are different now. Weary. Tired, like all they wanted to do was unsee the world and go back to sleep.

"Hi." She says.

"Hey, Madge."

"I never got a chance to say welcome home."

He shrugs. "It's alright. Thanks."

"So, you're still making cakes?" She almost cringes then and there. Whatever possessed her to say that, she wants to strangle.

But luckily, he just laughs a little. "Yep."

"That's great."

He nods. She looks him over, remembers watching him with Katniss in the cave. She had felt uncomfortable watching such a private moment when it'd been happening. Secretly, it'd given her relief, to think that Katniss was romantically with someone else. Someone that wasn't Gale. But then again, that had all stopped once they'd returned home. She didn't know the details of it, and wouldn't pretend to, but the way he treated her... it didn't seem at all artificial.

They weren't together now, though, obviously. It could have been a possibility, should have happened, but it didn't. Katniss had someone else in her heart that she cared more about. And Madge knows, all too well, how much that hurts.

She takes a breath, and says, "It's good to have you back."

She doesn't have anything else to say after that, but she reaches across the counter and squeezes his hand briefly. She isn't sure what makes her do it, but he looks up and smiles at her, and she's glad she did.

 

* * *

 

Their relationship has changed. He doesn't like it.

It's still her, still Katniss, but their equal partnership has become unbalanced.

She offers him money. She's got buckets of it now, and an impressive mansion to match. It's strange, them not being on the same playing field anymore. It's not like she's become a townie or anything, but the fact that her nails are clean and she owns high-end clothing that is worth his house now rattles him.

She forces him to at least take food - which he does. He relented after she made the case that he had kept her family fed as best he could while she was away. Though he hadn't - not the way he should got... distracted. He neglected them, and he feels an enormous sense of guilt rolling around like a slab of meat-fat in his stomach.

He realizes his family needs it. Hunting is getting harder to schedule, and Katniss, without school or her own family's necessity, brings in a much more bountiful haul than he does in a week. He also sees that it helps to have the distraction of hunting, the time among the trees to clear the mind and settle into familiar instincts. So he lets her.

The Victory tour sticks as a constant question in his mind. He knows Katniss will be forced to be on it, whisked away once again by the fancy, metal Capitol train for months. He wishes she didn't have to go. But she says she doesn't have a choice.

He remembers asking her to run away. He wonders every day what would have happened if they had.

 

* * *

 

Her bag strap weighs down sharply over her shoulder. Isla lectures her everyday about how she's going to have permanent spine damage if she keeps it up, but she can't seem to leave anything at home or school. She's always afraid she's forgetting something.

She walks along the dirt path that leads through the Seam, carrying Vick Hawthorne's notebook in her shaking left hand.

She spotted it as school was letting out, and picked it up automatically before she realized what she'd have to do with it. He'd left it on the desk of her classroom, as his class used it the period before hers.

After almost an hour of internal conflict, she'd finally decided to grow up and just take it to the kid. He'd probably need it. It was still pretty early, almost six, and the mines didn't let out until seven. So she figured it'd be safe.

She squints and looks up into the sinking sun. A few feet from the Hawthorne house, her feet stopped.

Maybe this was a terrible idea. No, of  _course_ this was a terrible idea. What was she thinking?

She was thinking that she was becoming a masochist, torturing herself by walking all the way here, talking to his brother, probably saying hello to his mother. She was thinking that she missed him. She wanted to be reminded of him.

But there was no turning back now. She took those last few steps up to the front door, and knocked.

The first time it barely made a sound. She tried again, harder, and finally someone inside the house called, "Coming!"

Hazelle opened the door, a shirt half-folded in her hand and some other pieces of fabric slung across her shoulders and upper arms.

"Hello Madge." She says kindly, looking flustered. "I thought you were one of my customers."

"Oh." She laughs a little.

Hazelle looks at her expectantly, but Madge's mind goes blank.

"Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, oh, yes, sorry, um," She holds out the notebook. "Vick left his notebook at school today. I guess he forgot it."

Just then, Vick's face appears under his mother's arm.

"Oh. Thanks Madge." He mumbles, grabbing the notebook and then disappears back into the house. Somewhere inside she hears Posy's impossibly high voice reciting something that sounds like a speech about trackerjackers.

Hazelle smiles at her appreciatively, and Madge has no idea what to do, feeling awkward still standing on the front step outside.

She vaguely kicks her foot against the ground, and then lamely says, "Well, I guess I'll just be going."

"Alright." Hazelle says, warmly smiling again. Madge wonders how she managed to do everything she did. She wishes, in a second of accidental truth, that Hazelle was her mother.

Madge smiles politely and thinly, before she steps down away from the house, and she hears the sound of the door closing behind her. She takes her time walking away, feet shaky.

As she's almost at the road that splits the Seam from town, she turns back. Her heart jumps into her throat as she sees a figure coming into view. It  _is_ him, carrying his tattered knapsack. He the sun is setting behind his broad shoulders, and she feels her eyes start to burn hotly.

She watches him turn off the road at the Hawthorne house. He opens the door and disappears inside. She imagines Posy coming to hug his legs, and Rory launching into a story about something that happened at school that day. Vick would be reading at the kitchen table. Hazelle would drop her work for a moment, motioning for him to come over. He'd wearily meet her, and she'd kiss his cheek. Vick would ask him how his day was. He'd reply, "Fine.", even though it wasn't. He wouldn't want to worry them. He'd keep his struggles private, because he wanted to be strong for them. He'd fall into bed at the end of the night, silently grumbling about his aches and pains he'd earned throughout the day underground.

He'd probably wish Katniss was there with him.

She bites her lip, says goodnight to him in her head, and turns around, and walks away.


	16. Blood

She does not cry out. Her fingernails dig into her palms so hard they start to bleed, but she doesn't even feel it.

She'd barely seen him in months following the ending of the Games. This wasn't how she wanted to see him again.

He's fallen unconscious, only held up by his wrists, bound to a wooden post by a thick rope.

His back is completely red, barely any of his skin is even left. His beautiful, rough, tanned skin.

She's going to vomit. She feels bile rise in the back of her throat. A scream almost escapes her, but she knows it's futile. She buries it deep in her chest and feels her circulation start to cut off as she holds her fist tightly.

The new Peacekeeper cracks the whip again. She stands with her father in the front of the crowd, an honor and privilege given to the Mayor. The cause of the crime, a poached turkey, hangs dead above his head.

She knew, vaguely, that he did some form of hunting. Her father had bought his strawberries for years, and it wasn't like they weren't sprouting up on their back porch. He'd talk abstractly about prices at the Hob, and she knew he supplied his family with all their meals from somewhere.

But she never realized how illegal it was. How badly it was possible to be punished.

"Father. Do something. Please." She hisses brokenly through her teeth.

"There's nothing I can do." He replies flatly, and she's going to scream. "I'm... sorry, Margaret."

She says nothing back, can't believe her father would let this happen, can't believe what's happening is happening at all.

The stones on the street are red from his blood.

He hadn't cried out for the first sixteen. She'd watched him, biting his lip so as not to make noise. On the seventeenth, it became too difficult. A hoarse shout fell from his mouth, and cut her like a knife twisting through her heart.

Katniss suddenly bursts forth from the crowd, throwing herself in between Gale and the whip.

"Stop it! You'll kill him!" She yells, and the whip stops momentarily.

The tears start to fall now. Katniss' left cheek starts to bleed.

It's clearer to her than ever before why he chose her.

Katniss was a doer. Madge was a watcher. It would always be that way. The boy - no,  _man_ she loved and that had broken her heart was in excruciating pain, yet all she did was stand by and watch.

She is disgusted at herself.

She has to help. She has to do something.

Haymitch Abernathy finally steps in, and it seems to have stopped. Peeta is here too. Gale remains a lifeless and limp.

Mr. Undersee tries to pull Madge away, his hand clammy and cold, in vain, until she finally starts to run.

Her father half-heartedly calls her name, but she doesn't reply.

The snow bites at her cheeks, but she keeps running. She runs up the familiar path to her house, throwing open the door and thundering upstairs. She kicks over a pile of folded clothes and they fall into her way, making her jump across them.

She clamors into the bathroom, ripping open the medicine cabinet and taking the small cardboard box labeled  _Morphling for M._

She runs all the way to the Seam, her legs aching and her lungs bursting, but she has to do this. She may have not been the hero, but maybe she can do this small act to help him through.

She knocks urgently on the door to the Hawthorne's house. But it isn't Hazelle who answers.

It's Leevy, a girl in her class. She was from the Seam, notoriously one of the girls who hung around the Slag Heap. Her brown hair hung down, ears too small to hold back her thick mane.

"Madge?" She asks in disbelief. "What are you doing here?"

"Is Gale here?" Madge manages to ask, holding tightly onto the box. Her chest is heaving, and she can barely get the words out.

Leevy looks at her suspiciously.

"No." Leevy says flatly. "He's at the Everdeen's."

"Madge?" Posy's voice asks shakily from inside. She appears under Leevy's arm, pressing her cheek against the doorframe and looking up at her through puffy eyes.

"Hi Posy." Madge says.

"Madge, please, what's happening?" Posy shoves out past Leevy, her small feet tripping as they left the house. She looks at Madge through desperate, frightened eyes. "Where's Gale? Where's Mommy?"

Madge drops down to her knees, still holding the box in one arm, and hugs Posy tight. She doesn't think about whether it's her place to, or whether it's inappropriate. Posy's shoulders shudder and Madge holds her tighter.

"Everything will be alright. Just listen to your brothers and Leevy and be brave." She whispers in her ear.

She pulls away, and Posy's got tears in her eyes, but she steps backwards back into the house. Leevy raises an eyebrow, but Madge just turns and starts to run again.

Trying to calculate how much time has already passed in her head, she ignores the fiery protest in her chest as she greedily inhales the sharp winter air.

She finally knocks on the Everdeen's door, brushing snow off the bottom of the box.

Katniss opens the door, her left cheek huge and bloody and bruised. She looks at her for an explanation, and Madge chokes back everything.

"Use these for your friend." She insists, pushing the box of morphling into her hands. "They're my mother's. She said I could take them. Use them, please."

And then she runs away. She runs and runs, because she can't bear the thought of walking and letting her head fill up again. She runs until she falls in the snow a few feet away from her house. She doesn't care that she's getting wet and frostbite on her cheeks and hands.

Gale won't die, she thinks. He won't die because Katniss is going to take care of him. And when he wakes, it'll be to see Katniss' face, to hear her voice again, because he won't die when Katniss is by his bedside.

And he'll hug her and kiss her and marry her. They're so much the same, and all their children will have dark hair and tanned skin and hunter instincts. Everyone will love them.

She doesn't know how long she lays in the snow for, but at some point before the sun dies, her father's hands help her up. She is deadweight against him, but he supports her. A small, unfamiliar act.

He takes her inside, and sits her down at the kitchen. He mutters to Isla to make her some hot chocolate, and then disappears.

She stares at the table, long past the time when the cup of hot chocolate in front of her turns cold.

 

* * *

 

Her eyes plead with her to close, but she blinks the sleep out of them and keeps them open. Her elbows sit on her bed, her fingers intertwined, her knees on the floor.

She looks up at the ceiling.

She never went to church. She had learned about them in Panem history class, before the Dark Days and the Rebellion, there was an organized religion. It had it's problems, of course, and often it reminded her of the same attitude the Capitol had, an all-seeing all-powerful entity that wanted to control everything.

But apart from that, it seemed like it could be a comfort. Putting the trust of fate into something elses' hands. Knowing that there was something more beautiful in a next life after you left this one. The ancient scriptures revere one God as the Creator, and He was everything.

There wasn't anything like that in existence anymore, though. Anything that could interfere with the Capitol's authority was immediately destroyed. Even the mention of churches themselves in school had been in ridicule, and hadn't been permitted to be discussed openly.

She doesn't know who she's talking to, or if there's even anyone or anything that could listen. But if, by some chance there is, she thinks it's worth a shot.

"Please." She whispers into the darkness of her room. "Please let him live. Let him heal. Let him be ok."

She repeats it, over and over, in a whisper, in a chant. The words melt together and slur as they get quieter and more lyrical, until she's not even saying words anymore. She is completely absorbed.

They become internal, they echo with every beat of her heart.


	17. Darkness

You never know what you have until it's gone. His mother always told him that. But when you didn't have anything in the first place, it's hard to be grateful for that when things were added as opposed to being taken away. Because in this case, what was added are even worse than not having anything at all.

What had been added (as read from the new set of rules tacked over the doorframe of the industrial mine elevators) included an increase in the length of the workday (an extra hour in the morning and two at night) and a decrease in wages, a shortened meal break. Speaking universally, the prices of food, even bought from the Hob, had skyrocketed. Taxes accompanied everything now, and were monitored daily.

He goes back to work in desperation. His back still aches painfully, and sharply reminds him of the ripped up scars every time he moves. His shirt's material was soft, but he needed bandages. But they were expensive. Everything was expensive.

He wished he could have stayed at least one day longer in the comfortable Everdeen house, but his family was on the brink of starvation. They always were - but now he didn't have the much needed income from selling meat, or even berries. The slimmed-down wage from the mine was the only thing he could offer.

His mother hadn't mentioned it to him, but he noticed her having less work and the frequent visits from customers dwindling. Amounts of money that seemed scarce before now sounded like a dream.

After overhearing a merchant woman apologize to her through the back window, saying that she couldn't afford to align herself with someone so close to Katniss, he decides that he needs to do something.

So day after day, in the tiny amount of daylight he has between the time his mine day ends and when he has to be home, he looks for some source of income. Any odd jobs, anything at all, really. But the problem is, everyone's in the same position as him. Everyone's looking, and everyone's starving.

There's nothing.

He comes home one day, taking off his boots mechanically, when he overhears Vick in the kitchen saying something along the lines off "Gale's going to murder you."

"Why would I do that?" Gale's voice asks boomingly into the quiet of the house.

Both boys, Vick and Rory, come out of the kitchen slowly. Vick stares at the ground, but Rory looks at him resolutely.

Without words, he steps up to Gale and opens his fist. Sitting in his palm are shiny coins.

Gale rips them out of his hand, studying them closely with calculated eyes. They are real, they are metal coins like the ones he receives from the mines. Though most things in the Seam are traded, real money is extremely valuable.

"Where did you get these?" He demands accusingly. But he knows already.

"We needed it."

Gale slams the coins down on the table in front of him loudly, making Vick jump. Rory stands his ground.

"Dammit Rory, Ma told you no. I told you,  _no_."

"Now we can afford to at least start eating dinner again!" Rory counters. "With this, we could - "

" _Quiet!_ " He yells darkly. Rory's mouth clamps shut sharply, but his eyes stay challengingly on Gale. Gale stands up from the couch, stepping up close to Rory and looming over him, taking advantage of the height difference. He is the man of the house, and he needs to make sure that Rory remembers that.

"You're only almost thirteen. Do you know what would happen if you were picked? Do you understand how real all of that is? The fact that Katniss came home alive is a miracle. She, at least, knew how to set a trap and use a bow. She knows how to identify poisonous plants and how to read animal footprints. Do you? You would be  _slaughtered_. You would leave Ma and Posy heartbroken. You need to start think about the consequences of your actions."

"The  _only_ reason I don't know any of those things is because you won't teach me!" Rory thunders. "And how can you say I need to be held responsible for consequences if you don't let me do anything at all?!"

His head is starting to pound. "Rory - "

" _You_  almost died. When you were caught with the turkey. How is it any different if it's - "

"You will  _not_ continue to receive this money and you will not try to sneak past the fence. That's  _final_."

Rory's eyes finally fall to the ground, and he shakes his head. He moves towards the bedroom, hand on the door. He turns back, stating clearly, "You're not dad." Before going inside and slamming the door shut.

It hits him squarely in the chest, and he's caught completely off-guard by it. He sits back down on the couch numbly.

 

* * *

 

There is no light at the end of the tunnel anymore.

Rory won't speak to him, and he refuses to apologize. His mother has pushed and prodded, but both are stubborn Hawthorne boys who are too set in their ways to ever give in. He knows he's right, and Rory is just being an idiot, but the angry silence in the house is getting stifling.

And then she's going away,  _again_ , and it's different this time. If her odds last time were a thousand to one, this time they are non-existant.

There is one terrible night where thoughts of ending everything creep into his head, but he immediately drives them out. To even consider that is selfish, he has his entire family to worry about. And now that Katniss is disappearing (being taken from him) again, Prim and Mrs. Everdeen are in his hands as well.

There are a thousand holes he needs to fill and he's got nothing to fill them with. He's shit out of luck, and there's no where else to turn anymore. Briefly, the vision of a pair of sweet blue eyes and soft golden hair washes over him, which jars him considerably.

He'd managed not to think of her for weeks.

He rubs his eyes violently until the image is replaced with greenish-purple swirls, and then he shoves his face down into the broken-spring mattress, building concrete walls in his mind to keep all feeling out.

 

* * *

 

The Quarter Quell is different.

No Capitol guests stay this time. She's not sure why, but she's grateful and doesn't question it.

Her father requires her to watch it with him, though. He sits on the couch in the living room, eyes unfeelingly glued to the program.

Katniss and Peeta had been doing so many different interviews pre-Games. What with Peeta's proposal and the rumor that Katniss was with child, they were an even more popular Capitol conversation topic than before. Everyone loved a good on-screen romance between star-crossed lovers.

She thinks bitterly, in passing, how hard it must be for people who knew it was fake. Who had real ties to one of them. She remembers how he'd refused to watch the Games before, and how he probably still wasn't watching them now.

It's a commercial break - Madge gets up to get herself something to eat in the kitchen.

She opens the breadbox to find a half a loaf left. Though it's only Tuesday, and Saturday is when Isla goes to the bakery.

It has been hard, lately. Taxes have been raised along with prices. And since the - since the new Peacekeeper decided to demonstrate just how serious he was about the laws and what punishments would be administered.

She bites down hard on the inside of her cheek at the memory and shakes it out of her head, deciding that she isn't very hungry after all.

 

* * *

 

Sleep abruptly ends as something makes the ground under her bed shake.

She sits up so fast her head spins. She blinks into the darkness, craning her neck to glimpse something bright outside her window. The house across the road from hers is on fire.

She jumps out of bed, throwing open the door and running down to her fathers room. She opens the door and finds him already up, in his striped blue-and-white bathrobe, looking out the window above his bedside table. He turns towards her with panicked eyes.

The two of them stumble down the stairs, the first floor still dark, and the mayor throws open the door, almost falling down the front porch steps.

Outside, District 12 is burning.

She opens and closes her eyes, expecting to wake up, it's got to be a dream, this doesn't really happen in real life -

Above, metal planes circle in the sky.

People run and flood the streets in their bedclothes. In a completely parallel universe, Madge would have found this funny. Mr. Hieghty from down the block's pajamas are far too small, and Mrs. Patterson's hair looks like it was destroyed by a flock of vengeful birds. Citizens run back and forth up the street blindly, like chickens without heads.

But right now, laughing is the farthest thing from her mind. Her heart beats too fast to control, and she feels faint.

When she turns around, Isla is next to her, a calming hand on her back. She had been staying with them since the Capitol guests had left, freeing up the extra guest rooms.

Her father pushes past her farther into the house, tearing through the living room to his office. She stands next to Isla in the doorway, blindly staring around and wondering what she should do.

What's happening?

All of a sudden, the entire house shakes, and she finds herself horizontal to the ground. Smoke starts to creep into the room, and then she's screaming. Isla moves to reach her, and before she can, one of the ceiling beams crackles and falls between them, fire sprouting out of the air and barely missing Madge's head.

There's a barrier between them.

Her father appears next to Isla, and Madge wrenches herself up off the floor, skittishly looking for a way to get them out, get them safe, what are you supposed to do in a fire? Why hadn't she ever been told? Why didn't she know?

And then she remembers that her mother is upstairs, and tears start to flow down her cheeks and the fire is across the ground now, eating at everything, her couch and the rug and it's taken her beautiful piano.

She's frozen, she doesn't know what to do, the haze is choking her -

"Run! Madge, go! Now!" Her father yells from the other ride of the room. Isla is on her knees now, Madge sees barely through the flames, and she's praying -

"No! Not - No! You - !" She shouts incoherently. "I don't - Come - "

"Madge, leave!" He shouts desperately. "I - You - "

She steps backwards out of the house, feet clumsy, she won't take her eyes from her father though some part of her notices that there's no way her father and mother and Isla can escape. This isn't fair, why is this all being taken from her, what did she do?

She falls backwards down the wooden front porch steps, hard, her spine bruising as she sprawls out on the ground. Instincts make her scramble away from the burning house, but when she looks up she freezes.

She watches in blind horror as the roof caves in on itself, the deafening cracking of the wooden foundation of the house. Almost in slow motion, it all falls.

And her house burns. The house across the street from hers is ash now, followed by most of the others.

There aren't many on the street anymore, a few dark shadowed figures running somewhere far away. Planes still dot the sky.

Burning debris flies around in the air, and scratches her face, arms, and legs. Heat burning and prickling - no, stabbing everywhere. She crawls down the street, away from the fire that used to be where she grew up, until she finally finds enough strength (somewhere deep inside her she didn't know existed) to stand. She's running on legs that don't feel like they have bones anymore, and she barely stays upright, she runs along the road, barely registering anything until she's in the Seam, and there are people some distance away.

Blindly, she follows them, and they follow someone else. They get to the fence - they go beyond it.

Fleeing to the woods. There is no fire there.

Some ounce of survival instinct kicks in, and she goes. She's gasping, and each breath hurts her lungs, but she keeps moving. She passes the fence, and keeps running until she can't see the fence anymore, only a mess of unfamiliar woods all around her.

The night sky is a black hole, the trees curving in on her vision, before she's swallowed by the dark.

 


	18. Reborn

She wakes up with her face crusted with blood and the taste of iron in her mouth. Her eyes blink open slowly, and seem to pulse against the dawn light.

For a second, in a disoriented stupor, she wonders what she's doing in the woods. She's never been here before, why would she - ?

And then she remembers.

She's completely alone. In the middle of the unfamiliar and unforgiving woods of District 12.

She wanders for a while. When she was younger, her father always told her that if she ever got lost she should stay still, stay in one place, and that wandering was the worst thing she could do. But it wasn't like anyone was coming for her or trying to find her.

She doesn't know if there was anyone left at all.

So she starts looking for something. She remembers following people past the fence, so there must be at least  _someone_. But she doesn't have the odds on her side, with miles and miles of woods to cover and her obtainment of almost zero navigation skills.

It takes almost an entire day before she spots a tiny, burning fire that barely makes any smoke, and she sees it just as the sun goes down. She runs to it, smacking into tree branches, and not caring.

There are four people huddled around the tiny burning spark, and they turn, panicked, as she approaches them.

A middle-aged couple, Jon and Marg, an older man named Tock, and a young woman.

Madge enters their little grouping with hands up in surrender, and they take her in, much to her complete relief.

"Thank you." She says quietly, and Jon nods in response.

From her spot around the fire, she listens to Tock's complaining of his bones aching and Marg's suggestions on what they should do next.

The group tells her they've been here for four days now.

"It's been..." She trails off. That meant that she had to have been knocked out for two full days.

"We got separated from the larger group, and lost our way." Marg explains, running a hand through her graying hair. "So, who are you, anyway? What's your name?"

"Madge." She manages to say through painfully chapped lips.

Tock leans back for a moment, looking at her with a hint of contempt. He smacked his lips and then muttered, "Mayor's daughter."

All of a sudden, they look at her with unkind eyes, but no one says anything along the lines of making her leave. Conversation shifts and Madge tries to make herself invisible.

The woman called Talulah hands her a leg of the animal they've managed to catch. It's barely cooked, but Madge forces it down.

A quarter of an hour later, she leans over and vomits behind the tree.

She stares at the back under her fingertips, wondering if she's going to die soon.

 

* * *

 

_He'd been ushering people out for almost twenty minutes, directing people to the woods, to get as far away from the boundaries of District 12 as possible._

_He'd always been good under pressure. When there's a ticking clock, his mind clears, and his head tells him strict directions on exactly what to do and how long he had to get it done. So he had ran out of his house in the middle of the night, gathered everyone he could from the Seam that had appeared on the street in front of him, and lead them all out._

_He was almost a mile out in the woods before his heart almost fell out of his chest._

_Madge._

_Handing everyone off to his mother's authority, he had run back towards the Seam, where everything was burning and you had to squint to see through the smoke. He guessed the main road would be destroyed, so he took the roundabout way, directly behind the Seam to the school (which had been reduced to the metal framework holding up the building in a pile of ash), to town. He coughed - couldn't breathe - and when he finally got to her street, he almost collapsed._

_He stared in blank horror past the now non-existant white picket fence. What was left of her house was still burning, flame still eating at the expensive wood of the internal flooring. He could just barely pick out the piano, bashed in and crackling in flame._

_He was too late._

 

* * *

There is an unbelievable amount of people crammed into the small makeshift campsite they've set up. It's crowded, people in varying degrees of capability. Many have minor burns, a few broken legs, arms, and sprains. His mother, a few feet away, wraps up a deep gash on a man's leg with a ripped up piece of his own shirt.

Thom actually helps too, he doesn't have much experience, but he's good at remembering exactly where traps were set and is decent at extracting the game that's been caught.

He knows, in a sort of analytical way, that he can't keep this up too much longer. He doesn't know what will happen when he can't keep what's left of District 12 up, but he can't bare to think about it.

So he works harder and harder, and feels his back breaking under the weight one vertebrae at a time.

 

* * *

 

She swears that she's imagining it when the plane lands almost a mile away from where they are.

The "rescue" goes by like a dream, she's laying on the ground when men in uniforms come. The uniforms are ones that she's never seen before - not miners, not field workers, not Peace Keepers, not Capitol citizens.

Her vision blurs in and out, but she sees clearly when one man squats down next to her face, studying it for a moment, before pressing his gloved fingers to her neck.

"Alive." He says shortly, and his hands grip her shoulders and arms, pulling her up to a half-standing position.

Next thing she knows, she's in a metal compartment, with Jon and Marg across from her, looking terrified.

Her heart rate picks up considerably. Where is she? Has the Capitol captured them? What did they care about a few survivors? Nothing made sense.

The ground is moving under her. It's not a train, trains are steady. Is she in the sky?

And then she felt a needle to into her arm, and her entire body electrocuted. She sat up, gasping, while a man in a medical uniform smiles blandly at her. His eyes were toxic blue, staring at her harshly.

"Good afternoon." His voice is low and gravely. "We'll be landing very soon."

"Where?" Her throat feels like sandpaper, every syllable aches like hell.

He smiles again. "Everything will be explained to you when we land."

He gets up from a black chair, moving over to a pull-out table attached to the wall. He looks through a folder, and then extracts a clipboard with a list of hand-written names.

He looks at her expectantly, asking, "What's your name?"

"M - "

She remembers Tock's reaction, and Jon and Marg's, and clamps her mouth shut.

She's the mayor's daughter. The Capitol obviously bombed her house for a reason. It would be unwise to let people know that a piece of District 12's government, however insignificant, survived. For her own safety, she lies.

"M - May. May... Johnson."

"May Johnson. Ok." He scribbled her name down, and she laid her head back on the bed she was laying on, her eyelids closing without her control.

 

* * *

 

He's sitting next to her, staring at her face and willing her to wake up.  _Wake up, wake up, wake up._

He can't lose someone else to the hands of the Capitol.

And then Katniss does, slowly opening her eyes. He watches her croak his name, her eyes jumping to his arm in his sling and then to the side of his face that was burnt. The gears inside her head work fast and clean, like clockwork, as she searches for an answer to what happened to him.

"Prim?" She asks breathlessly.

"She's alive. So is your mother. I got them out in time." He says, keeping all emotion out of his voice. He knows he should be strong for her.

"They're not in District Twelve?"

He's going to tell her. He has to.

He forces the words out as evenly as he can.

"After the Games, they sent in planes. Dropped firebombs." He stops, swallows, and continues. "Well, you know what happened to the Hob."

"They're not in District Twelve?" She repeats, as if asking it again will change the answer. But it doesn't.

"Katniss," His voice is heavy.

"Don't," She whispers.

"Katniss, there is no District Twelve." He says, and at that moment, everything crashes over him. The extreme gravity and  _realness_ of the situation; his home was destroyed. His house burned.

Madge burned.

He rubs roughly at his eyes, scared that he might cry. Katniss shuts her eyes, falls silent. He's grateful not to have to speak.

 

* * *

 

Everything is dark gray and metal now.

Blood is a common occurrence, and holding a gun is second nature.

This is war. And being a soldier, being a killer, fills him with a sick pleasure he's never experienced before. His body is pulsing, all the time, and acidic electricity runs through his veins.

His life becomes propos and underground flashlights and hovercrafts and Katniss and Coin.

He trades in bows and arrows for guns and bombs now.

He works, bent over, his elbows pressed the table, playing with fire. He can create something to destroy. And he will create things to destroy the people who taken away everything from him.

Pain does not break him down anymore. No, it's his fuel, and the more he bleeds, the stronger he gets. He grows a second shell, everything within him that was once soft had been hardened to stone.

They've starved and tortured their nation. They sit up in their mansions, going to their lavish parties, gushing over dresses and suits and shoes. They stuff their faces like overgrown pigs, vapid minds choosing to ignore anyone else but their selves.

He has wanted to hurt them all for so long, and finally, someone put the means in his hands to do so.

And he intends to use it, for all it's worth.

 

* * *

 

She watches it all happen.

The war, the deaths, everything.

But to everyone, she's dead. And she needs to stay that way.

She's a coward. But she made peace with that fact about herself a long time ago, so she doesn't allow herself to wallow in it now.

She's just May Johnson, a District-12-now-District-13 citizen. She's plugged into the system, she does her daily work at the public works building, she eats at meal breaks, she spends a half an hour every night "relaxing". She buys a cat and she's given a compartment.

She watches the media duel between the Capitol and President Coin and the rebels.

District 12 is deserted and lies somewhere west of here, barren and desolate.

She watches Peeta call for a cease-fire and him staying comfortably in the Capitol's arms. She never pegged him for a traitor, and it makes her sick watching him defend that corrupt organization.

Life before seems decades past, even though it's been less then a year since the bombings. She thought she saw Gale once, coming out of the main government building on her way home, but he disappeared almost as soon as her head turned, so she couldn't be sure.

She left a lot of things behind, left to burn and left its ashes to blow away.

 

* * *

 

Madge Undersee is dead.

She was born daughter of Mayor Undersee and his wife. She had soft hair and pale skin and calm blue eyes. Smart, quiet, studious. Innocent. Beautiful. She played the piano like she needed it to breathe. She liked peaches and strawberries and watching birds fly past her window. She was a romantic, her naive heart beating to the rhythm of the notes on the sheet music in front of her. Her world was filled with picket fences and soft blankets and regular meals, but she would have traded in all of those things to be truly loved.

Gale Hawthorne is dead.

He was born son of Mr. Hawthorne and his wife, Hazelle. He grew up to be strong, the man of the house. He loved his family unconditionally, and protected them and their well-being above all. He had hunter's reflexes and a smile that came out at rare occurrences. He was handsome. Strategic. Loyal. Determined and driven. He hated being useless, always wanting to help others, but he wished, deep down, that someone could take care of him for once, and stand by him when he needed help.

The two people that were addressed by those names began to rot as their world burned and crumbled.

So they adapted. Flesh replaced by thick chain-link armor.

They were reborn; stronger, but less alive.


	19. Contact

All governments have their problems, but he works hard to fix them.

The "Capitol" is moved to District 2, due to the physical destruction of the buildings and foundations of the city. The original Capitol now lies in ruins, and those who are not convicted and sentenced for war crimes and transported to live in District 1. A small part of Gale still thinks that even the surviving citizens of the Capitol deserve to pay, but there are bigger problems to focus on to distract him from seeking that kind of retribution.

The districts begin reconstruction. Slowly, but surely.

His twentieth birthday passes quietly, with a birthday message from Hazelle, Rory, Vick, and Posy from District 3.

They talked about all living in the new capitol, but Gale and Hazelle agreed against it. At least until Rory finishes school. It was still expensive to live there, and besides Gale, the family was all unemployed at the time of decision.

But now they were set up, with Gale sending half his money to help them out, and Hazelle working in a clothing store recently set up there and gaining recognition as a seamstress. Vick and Posy seemed to be adjusting well to their new school. Rory wrote him often, asking if he could stay with Gale for a while, telling him how boring it was in District 3 and how he could go to school in District 2 instead, but Gale always writes him back with a firm no and a reminder to look out for his younger siblings.

He buys himself a present out of spite, and a box of expensive cookies that he could have never afforded before this new government job and the free-up of more available jobs (which slowly started up the economy again).

He sits in the kitchen of his apartment, leaning his elbows on the metal table and closing his eyes briefly, enjoying the richness of the dessert in his hand.

He won't touch weapons anymore. No guns, no bombs. Kitchen knifes are even hard for him to use, so he buys everything pre-cut and pre-packaged. It feels slightly emasculating, not being able to skin a wild dog anymore, but there aren't any wild dogs running around here to hunt, so he tries to let it go.

Because of his high-level involvement in the government and the classified, confidential projects he works on, he's required to see a therapist each week.

He sits quietly with his arms crossed, answering her questions minimally and only just filling the requirement. Dr. Roz urges him to share, insists that speaking about painful subjects often hurt, but in the end it helps a person heal.

But he just nods. He learned, a long time ago, to trust no one. These sessions are not confidential, and he especially doesn't trust a woman who has the same job as she did under the last government.

And there are too many things to talk about. More than a few, and the ones he can bear to talk about hold up the dam that keeps in the real troubles. His tolerance for crying and whining has been drained, and now he avoids any situation that includes any emotional pressure. He just... can't.

He chooses not to think.

And it's easy. Besides the nagging Dr. Roz, there is no one around to ask him difficult questions, and no one around to make him answer. His family is in District 3, Johanna Mason has returned to District 7 to head the reorganization there, Katniss and Peeta (he thinks of them, bitterly, as Katniss-and-Peeta instead of their respective identities) have gone back to District 12.

And everyone else is dead.

 

* * *

 

Her cheek's pressed to the cold linoleum. Her breath is slow and steady, and with each inhale her stomach pushes against the ground. Her hair is fanned out under her head, and her legs are crossed, one over the other comfortably. She yawns unattractively, and sighs after. Her eyes start to blink closed slowly.

She's been laying on the floor of her loft apartment for almost an hour. She's exhausted, but she's been in bed all day and can't seem to fall asleep again.

All the lights are off, but she lives on the fourteenth floor of the building, level with some sort of lower rank government building, so her room is illuminated by the bright office lights of workers doing overtime, scribbling furiously in a notebook at their desk.

From downstairs, she can hear some sort of music being played and accompanied by someone singing along off-key. Her fingers dance across the floor in front of her face, just barely tapping to the beat of the music below her.

Her apartment's not big enough to fit a piano, and she doesn't have enough money to buy one anyway. But she misses music more than anything, and she hasn't felt keys under her fingertips since before that night.

She realizes now, all of a sudden, that she has literally not said a word all day. To anyone. She works at the public library downton, and spent the day organizing records and back issues of informational magazines. Her day was spent catching the morning shuttle there, going through her work day, eating lunch alone, and then coming home.

"Hello." She says to her empty flat, voice scratchy and unused. Silence responds.

It's only now she realizes how strange that is. She was never very loud or outgoing, but there had never been a day where she didn't at least greet her father good morning, or answer Isla's question about how school was, or thank a boy for holding the door open for her.

She misses human contact. She feels cut off from everything, from everyone, and it's slowly eating her away internally. Her parents are dead, Isla's dead, Katniss is gone.

She knows  _he's_  here. She saw him, briefly, standing behind a government representative at the press conference last month.

She knows where he works. She's watched him go into the fancy, gleaming government base building.

But he's doing fine without her. Great, in fact. And even though Katniss, the love of his life, is gone, he looks completely over everything. District 12 is a distant memory to him, and her a minor detail that gets forgotten after a while. Who's she to come barging into his life and messing it up for him?

He probably wouldn't be happy to see her, anyway.

So she remains under the alias of May Johnson, and she works at the library downton, and tries to forget about everything like he has.

 

* * *

 

A few straggling refugees from District 13 still mill around here, but most have relocated to the outlying Districts. Shuttle routes and stations are being renovated at close-to-top priority. He never realized, while it was happening, how long it was going to take to get things to where they were supposed to be.

His head was all quick destruction and aggressive strategy during the war, naively assuming that after the Capitol was desolated, it would be a new day and things would all work out. That wasn't the case, obviously.

In the center of the square, the team from District 2's recreation department oversee the mounting of a stone statue of "The Mockingjay", Katniss' likeness stands tall, her signature braid falling down her back.

Gale sits on the edge of one of the old fountains situated under the shade of a large oak tree, picking at a sandwich he ordered from the food stand outside his work building. The sun is blisteringly hot today, and he loosens his tie lazily, blankly watching an older couple stop to admire some plants flowering nearby.

He hates this sort of perfection that exists here. He knows this is the only District that was left fully in-tact through the rebellion, but he doesn't like the idea of sitting in an expensively-cultivated park while District 12 is barely getting on it's feet again.

He expresses this at meetings often, but is met by insistence that there are teams there addressing the issues that need to be worked out. Still, it makes him guilty that he stays in such a nice apartment and food every day.

But for now, in this brief moment, he actually feels calm. The tree above him casts leaf-shaped shadows on his face, reminding him of the woods.

"Hiya, Gale."

Gale looks up at the figure shielding the sun. He forces a smile. "Hello Stan."

Stan Michicant stands above him in an expensive-looking suit, his hands folded and resting on his gut. He worked as a book-keeper for the accounts for District 3. A native of District 6, he adjusted happily to the (somewhat) city life, and delighted in bragging about parties he attended and possessions he had bought. He turns to notice the statue being mounted and nods in pretentious approval.

"Oh, neat." Stan says conversationally. "You knew her, yes?"

"Yeah." He replies slowly. He stares over Stan's shoulder at Katniss' stone face looking back at him, standing tall, strong and determined. A symbol, a figure, a guiding light.

Something she never wanted to be.

He can barely see her as Catnip, the tiny, shy dark-haired girl trespassing in his woods. Against her will, they all made her become this public figure. Him included.

"Back in 12 now?"

Gale fights the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, wishing that Stan would just take the hint and leave. This rare nice day that he was having was quickly turning sour.

"Yes." He replies shortly.

"Hm. Oh, did you hear? They're scheduling the District 4 budget meeting for tomorrow."

"Thought it was supposed to be Monday."

"Nope. They decided to change it, I don't know, Patricia decided so, I believe. Say, did you catch the new episode of Our Districts, Our Lives last night - ?"

"No - Sorry Stan, I've gotta run, it was good to see you." He cuts him off, standing up and moving past him. Stan replies with a vague goodbye, probably moving on to talk to some other unsuspecting bystander.

Gale walked out of the square and onto the street, shoving his hands in his pockets. He had somewhere near twenty minutes before he needed to be back in the office, and figured it'd be nice to take a walk before going back.

The streets were relatively full, it being lunch hour in an area filled almost completely of government base buildings and official District buildings. People rush by him.

He stops at a crossing, and stares idly across the street to the corner adjacent the one he stands on. There's a crowd, business men and women and -

"Madge?" He breathes, the name feeling unfamiliar and painful on his lips, like scratching at a scab.

He must be crazy. He's not seeing ghosts, that's insane. He must be wrong. Madge Undersee died almost nine months ago.

But she turns her head to look both ways before crossing the street, and it's  _her._ He's sure.

"Madge!" He shouts, and he takes off down the street after her. Everyone else on the street turns around and complains as he pushes past them roughly. She keeps walking, crossing the street again at the next corner and threading her way expertly through the heavily-populated sidewalks.

"Madge!" He tries again, breathing hard and picking up speed. "Madge!" Finally, he gets close enough to grasp her shoulder, and she turns around, shrugging off his hand like she's expecting to be attacked.

He chokes on his breath, his heart stilling abruptly.

It's her. Madge Undersee, standing in front of him, all legs and eyes and hair. She wears a white button-down tucked into a black skirt, her hair pinned back half-up-half-down, like she used to on especially hot summer days. She also wears a chronically weary underlying expression, and her face looks as if it hasn't smiled in years. But there is no question of her identity anymore, because her eyes are exactly the same, staring back at him like they're under the tree in her front yard again.

His mind swims with questions so rapidly he feels like he might pass out.

He can't help but reach out to touch her arm, to reassure himself that she's  _there_ , that he's not talking to air or a figment of his tortured imagination. No, she's flesh and bone and breath. She doesn't pull away this time.

"Madge?"

She smiles thinly.

"Hi Gale."


	20. Found

Sitting across from her is the most unreal experience he's ever had. It feels cosmic, almost, like it has to be some sort of fever dream. But she's solid and clear as day, her legs crossed and her left palm closed around the coffee cup in front of her.

They agreed to meet "for coffee", as if he was just some guy on the street asking a pretty girl out on a date. Around him, people bustle about to get their late-morning caffeine fix. A woman with two rowdy kids steps up to the counter to buy a latte. It blew his mind how casual the entire thing seemed, how casual she  _made_ it seem.

She half-smiles at him, saying, "It's good to see you."

"Yeah, it's good to see  _you_ too."

She looks older. She wears a black pencil skirt and a white blouse and her blond hair up in a bun. Her face is the same, of course, but the corners of her mouth seem to droop and there are bags under her eyes that were never there before.

She seems... closed off. Almost like she's not the "real" Madge - she's just a wax figure.

"How've you been?" She asks casually.

He unconsciously leans forward, studying her face. A collected, guarded expression seems plastered on as she looks back at him.

"Madge... how are you alive? - I mean, how did you...?"

"I got out. Ran." She explains shortly. But her expression had altered, fell a little.

"Ran where?"

"The woods."

"...How'd you survive?"

That's when her face finally takes some expression. Her jaw clenches for a moment, and she replies sharply, "I learned."

"No - I just meant..." He drops his head in surrender.

He scratches the back of his neck, feeling unsettled, and she looks sideways out the window. He can tell that he's offended her, by implying that she couldn't survive on her own. He doesn't remember her being offended about anything.

She's changed.

She bites her lip, then looks at him with a touch more softness.

"I was moved to District 13 before the war, and after, I was redistributed to here." She explains.

"How long've you been here?"

She shrugs. "About a year or so."

"A year." He repeats, and thinks of all the times they could have been walking on opposite sides of the street or just missed each other by seconds leaving the grocery store.

"I work as a librarian. At the public library a few blocks down from here."

"That's great." He says, perhaps a little too enthusiastically.

A silence settles over the pair. She works, like she actually has a  _job._ He can't take his eyes off her, cataloguing every line and crease of her face. A piece of hair falls in front of her face. He wants to brush it behind her ear.

She beats him to it, curling it behind her ear.

"How's... How is your family?" She says cautiously. She watches his reaction carefully, he realizes she might not know that they survived.

He smiles. "They're alive. Happy and healthy - for the most part - in District 3."

"That's really good to hear." She breathes, like the answer took a weight off her shoulders. Maybe it did.

"I wish I would have known..."

"Known... what?"

"I wish I would have known you'd survived, Madge." He blurts out, like he's been waiting years to say it. "For all this time... all this time I thought you were dead."

She says nothing. She doesn't look at him, refuses to meet his eyes even as his plead her to. Her mouth is set in a thin line, and her eyebrows crinkle like she's willing herself to keep still, not even breathe. He doesn't understand why.

All of a sudden, he feels completely exposed. He put how he felt (or, in reality, the closest thing to how he felt that he could put into words) out in the open, and she was giving him nothing. She was acting like they were strangers. She was being polite and distant.

He leaned back in his seat, his hand rubbing the back of his neck nervously. What was going on with her? Why didn't she seem happy to see him?

"I knew  _you_ were here." She says finally. "I've seen you on TV."

"I hate being on camera." He replies, because his brain feels fried and unable to regulate what he's saying. The entire conversation feels unsettled and clogged, in some way.

"You know Delly Cartwright's here?" She tells him suddenly, her guard up again.

He nodded. "She works in Recreation, in the building across the street from where I am."

She stirs her drink lazily.

"She says you helped her." Her tone is clipped and punctuated. "Found her and her brother and took them into the woods. Saved almost 800 people, apparently. Very heroic."

He doesn't know how to respond. It's confusing him, the way she's acting. She is not how he remembered her.

She puts her spoon down next to the cup slowly, smiling bitterly.

"Did you even  _think_  to look for me?" She asks almost violently, her jaw tightening as she stared at him accusingly.

"Of course I did. I went - I tried, I tried to look for you, but you were in town and - "

" _Delly_  was in town! And Alice,  _and_ Max! But you came to their aid!" Her eyes began to burn, and she covered her face frustratedly. She dragged her fingers down her face in attempt to pull herself together, but she blurted out, "You didn't care whether I lived or  _died_!"

"Dammit Madge, I  _went_ to your house!" He suddenly shouts, slamming his hand down on the table. Everyone in the cafe turns and looks at him, but he doesn't notice. "And I was too late. I - It... it was already ash."

And all of a sudden, her eyes change. And they're wide, scared doe eyes and he regrets yelling but in truth he can't help it, because he  _is_ angry. He's angry at himself that she had gone on for years thinking that he didn't care about her, and that he didn't come for her. He should have gone to her as soon as his family was safe.

She had saved him so many times, with his family, in the mines, with his loneliness. But in the end, he couldn't do the same for her.

She stands up slowly, collecting her bag and whispering, "I'm sorry."

And then she leaves, the bell on the door tinkling behind her.

He stands up, his teeth gritted in frustration, but he runs after her. The streets are busy, but he doesn't care who he's pushing.

"Madge!"

She keeps walking, purposefully, away from him.

"This was a mistake."

"How?" He yells, catching up with her. "How is this a mistake!?"

"Because you were doing fine without me.  _I_ was doing fine without  _you_."

His grip caught her wrist, and she stopped rigidly, but refused to face him.

"I wasn't doing fine." He hears his voice say. It's the most truthful thing he's said since everything happened, since the day the revolution started and the gunfire began and he learned how to lie. "I'm  _not_ doing fine."

She turns finally, slowly, and there's an ache in his chest that he hasn't felt in a long time. She's crying, and maybe he is to.

Her fingers come up to touch his cheek, and she stares at his face like it's the only thing she sees. He wonders if she missed him as much as he missed her.

Without her, a part of him is missing. A part saved for sunny days in the meadow and strawberries and cookies, and smiling and laughing and loving. In his world where he is forced for as long as he can remember to stay unbowed and hard, she is the only sliver of light that allows him to relax for a minute, let warmth wash over him, save him from himself.

It's not until now that he realizes how much he really does need her.

"Don't go." He pleads, his voice cracking. "I just found you."

Her blue eyed gaze darts away from him for a moment and the corners of his chest feels like it crumbles. He can see the gears in her head as her eyes search the ground, and he watches her decide.

With a deep breath, she promises, "Then I won't."

A long time ago, he said no. He left her, because she was rich and he was dirt poor and they would never have worked. But things were different now. And she was alive, and he had a second chance.

So he slid his hand under her hair, brushing past the back of her neck to cradle her head. His thumb strokes the skin behind her ear, and she stares up at him, her mouth just barely open, like she wants to say something else.

But she doesn't. The noise of the city around them, people talking and yelling and a few cars driving in the street and feet hurrying past, echoes in their silence.

The tip of his nose touched hers, and he paused, giving her a second to move away. Instead,  _she_ closed the distance between them, pressing her lips to his.

And everything in his chest released, all that pent up stress and anger just sagged, and he let go. It was like coming home. Such a thing of the past, of the world before, so much a memory but so real at the same time. It's like he can finally breathe again, like he'd been underwater for years.

He can feel her tremble just the tiniest bit and he's reminded of how much this means to her to. He likes the feeling of her needing him. He always had.

She pulls her lips away slowly, but doesn't step back. Instead, she wraps her arms around his middle and pushes herself against his chest. Her face just barely reaches the crook of his neck. He, in turn, wraps his arms around her shoulders and neck, almost enveloping her completely with them.

And in some ways, this hug feels much more intimate than the kiss. And her fingers grip his shirt, and his face is buried into her hair.

"I missed you." He whispers in her ear, hugging her closer (if it's possible).

He can hear her smile in her response.

"I missed you too."

 


	21. Call

She loves her job.

The dingy, run-down library in old District 12 had been abandoned when she'd turned 10, as it simply wasn't seen as a necessity. Besides, not many people from the district had above a thirteen-year-old's reading level, and no one read for pleasure anyway. There wasn't any time.

So the public library of new District 3 is like the Ancient Library of Alexandria. It's got multiple floors, not including the basement and the attic. And she gets paid a decent salary.

She likes reading. More than that, she likes the idea of a place filled to the brim with history and knowledge. She'd had a limited amount of education from an early age - but her father, though he was the mayor, had not had as large a thirst for learning as she had. And her mother stopped reading when she started on meds.

Thinking about her parents doesn't sting so much anymore. It still hurts, yeah, and she has dreams about the fire all the time. But she's gotten good and pushing it down and thinking about her family in a purely logical, detached sense.

Another reason why she loves her job is because getting it forced her to learn to be self-dependent. She learned what it was like to make and manage your own money, pay the necessary bills and taxes and pick what she needed to spend her money on. She was abruptly made an orphan, but a capable one. She likes the feeling of being capable.

She shoves the cart of records along the floors, the wheels squeaking loudly and echoing off the marble, impossibly high ceilings. She arrives at the correct empty shelf, and begins filling chronologically.

She's done almost half before she senses someone behind her.

When she turns around, Gale grins and holds up a bag of food. "I brought you lunch."

He's in his business/work clothes. It's strange to see him in such a high-quality fabric, his shirt looking ironed or starched, crisp and unstained. She knows he's got a fancy government job, pretty high-level, but she doesn't think she's ever going to get used to seeing him that way. He's wearing a  _tie._

She starts an excuse, "I have to finish - "

She's interrupted by him pressing his lips roughly against hers, his free hand on the small of her back and gathering her up close to him. But unfortunately, as quickly as it began it ended.

He pulls away, smiling guiltily. "Sorry, I just... missed you."

Shakily tucking her hair behind her ears, she says brashly, "Alright,  _yeah_ , I guess I could take a break."

They both laugh, and she abandons the cart, taking Gale through the stacks to this tiny courtyard off the left wing, where no one ever goes because it still hasn't been renovated. But she thinks it's peaceful, and she wants to show him.

"Miss Undersee?" She freezes. Senior librarian Ms. Peterson sits primly with a pile of forms out in front of her, looking at her disapprovingly. The older woman wore the stereotypical librarian glasses-on-a-chain and perpetual "shhhh!" expression. She widens her eyes expectantly.

"Oh, I'm... I'm taking my lunch now." Madge says, briefly glancing at Gale standing behind her.

"Ah." She raises an eyebrow at Gale, very obviously checking him out. Madge understands; it's not everyday that a dark handsome man in a suit shows up with food and a smile. And as much as Madge wishes she could forget, Gale is charming and attractive, and always popular with women.

But Ms. Peterson nods in resignation and feigns returning to her work, still examining Gale out of the corner of her eye. Madge pulls him away, leading him down a hallway of stacks that hasn't been touched in years. Everything sits in a thick layer of dust, making her nose itch.

She knows they have a lot to talk about, before they can really progress anywhere. A lot of it will be difficult and painful, what with the fire and the war and... and Katniss.

And she hopes Gale understands that this isn't casual for her, and it never will be, concerning him. And while she knows that they could never completely start over with a blank slate, she likes the feeling of their new "relationship" now. They're getting to know each other again, slowly but surely.

 

* * *

 

As he approaches the front glass doors, he spots her outside. She's shifting from foot to foot with her shoulders hunched up against the weather (it's been chilly this week and she's only in a sweater). He meets her, and they walk away from his office building, hand-in-hand.

They've been seeing each other for a few weeks now. It's  _great_.

He even found himself telling Hazelle about her, and she was ecstatic. Posy was even more excited when she called back barely a minute later, shrieking into the phone about whether or not they were getting married or not.

He's actually...  _happy._ In a warm, glow-y, unreal way. He's not naturally chipper, one of those people that get told to "smile more". But ever since Madge came around, he finds himself smiling at random moments when she pops into his head.

This does not mean he can sleep. The nightmares don't go away. He still can't feel safe taking a shower or sleeping without some sort of weapon available and a few steps distance. He still calls his mother every morning to make sure that everyone's still healthy and alive.

One particularly bad night, he started crying and couldn't stop. And there were too many shadows on the walls, and his chest started to close in on him and he couldn't breathe, and he needed to hear someone's voice, someone to help him. And for the longest time, he avoided calling her. He didn't want to be too weak in front of her, he had to keep  _some_ form of masculine dignity about him.

But it got worse, and he was gasping because he couldn't seem to calm down, and flashes of explosions were in the back of his eyes and he couldn't see straight.

He calls her. She lets him yell. She asks him what he needs. He says her.

She shows up at his door twenty minutes later, in a coat hastily thrown over pajamas, and he realizes it's past midnight. He's calmed down a little now, but he vaguely notices he's been sweating and his heart rate is still spiked. She hugs him clumsily, and he catches onto her.

She gets him a glass of water. And she takes his hand tightly, leading him over to his bed and pushes him in between the covers, propping up the pillows.

She pauses above him when he won't let go of her hand. She looks down at him, half-smiles and then finally takes off her coat. The bed shifts as she lifts the covers and climbs in, their fingers laced together tightly, his cheeks a little sticky from tears, and she lets him rest his head between her shoulder and her neck.

The night stretches out, and black fades into navy, that fades into lighter blues and purples and pinks and oranges and yellows and the sun peaks up from the east and morning comes.

When he wakes up, she's still there. She isn't sleeping - she's sitting up against the headboard, knees bent to prop up this ancient leather-bound book she's reading. She biting her bottom lip absently, playing with the ends of her hair, eyes scanning across the text at an alarming speed.

He watches her for a moment, before he brushes his knuckles against her bare arm, making goosebumps. She turns to him, putting away the book, and smiles.

Rays of early-morning light cling and get stuck in her hair. Everything is so quiet, all light and bathed in pale yellow.

Everything from last night has faded away, and he's never been more calm. He feels rested and content, completely, for the first time since his father died.

 

* * *

 

It's late at night when his telephone rings, making him fly out of bed and up onto his feet with an iron pipe in his hand poised over his head. He relaxes when he realizes what the sound actually is, and he tosses the pipe back down next to his bed.

He'll never get used to it.

He considers not picking up at all, knowing the only people who ever call him is his mom or Posy, and they'd never call this late. But he does anyway, because he's curious.

"Hello?"

"Hey." Her voice instantly makes him smile. "Sorry, did I wake you up?"

"No, it's alright."

There's a pause. He can imagine her sitting in her high-rise apartment she told him about, the phone to her ear, curled up in bed some distance away. He wishes she was next to him instead.

"I kind of forgot why I called." She says sheepishly.

"Ok." He replies simply.

They stay on the phone, listening to each other breathe.

"I can't sleep." She tells him.

His words are slow and purposeful, as he admits. "I haven't slept in weeks."

"Me neither." She sighs. "Have you tried taking anything for it?"

He shakes his head, but after a moment he remembers she can't see him. "No. I don't like the drugs, pills and needles, you know, the remind me so much of the Capitol I just can't seem to use them."

"I'm afraid to try anything. Sleeping pills especially. I'm... I don't know..." She stops abruptly, her breath stilling for a short while before "I'm afraid if I take one, I won't wake up."

After this, they talk most nights for hours, trading details about their day or things they've read. He likes when she laughs because she snorts into the phone and when he rambles on about people he hates at work she doesn't criticize him and she'll try to understand.

Sometimes he worries he's putting too much on her shoulders, telling her all his problems, imposing on her to make him dinner a couple times or take off work to have lunch with him. He told her once, apologized for it, and she just shook her head and laughed and said that she's glad to be imposed on.

 

* * *

 

One night after a particularly stressful day for both of them, they take a night out, walk around the city. Get a little buzzed. Gale paid a street performer to sing a love song to Madge, very loudly and off key, because he knew she'd be embarrassed and blush and smack his shoulder. But she laughed too, kissing his cheek quickly and then sprinting off down the darkened streets in front of him, dragging him along by his wrist.

At the end of the night, he walks her back to her apartment. She stumbles on the stairs, nearly falling on him, laughing in his ear and then fumbling with her key in front of the door.

When she finally manages to get her key out, she turns to him and doesn't open the door. He finds himself leaning into her like a magnet, because she smells so good and she's so happy and  _he's_ so happy and there were times last year where he never thought he'd ever get to feel this way again.

She shivers the tiniest bit when he presses his face against her neck, hugging her, her hand creeping up to card through his hair. It's much shorter. Not  _short_ _,_ but not the shaggy hair it was. It's cropped, and she can actually see his ears now.

He pulls back away from her slyly, gives her a kiss on the cheek and then turns to leave.

But her small hand grasps his wrist, stopping him. He raises an eyebrow at her. She smiles, resting her other hand on his shoulder and pulling him back close to her, winding both her arms around the back of his neck.  _She_  kisses  _him_  this time, eager and proud of herself for being demanding.

Then he slips his stupid tongue into her mouth and she feels like she's about to die, her heart is beating in her ears and he's shoving her up against the apartment door, trapped between it and him.

And she just feels tingly all over. Maybe it's because she's had some wine and her head's a little fuzzy, but she knows it's mostly just because of him, him and his stupid lips and fingers, and the way he kisses her and makes her feel it in her toes.

He's  _aggressive_.

The hard lines of his chest press against her, and before she can even register what she's doing, she's hooking her left leg around his waist. His hand grips her thigh and squeezes, like he's trying to keep himself from rutting into her.

And she shudders against him, remembering suddenly that they're in her hallway, and she's dangerously close to ripping off his shirt and licking him all over.

She's startled by her thoughts, abruptly pulling as far away from his as possible (which isn't very far at all, considering her back's already against the door). She stares at his mussed hair, swollen lips, and dark eyes, he looks like he wants to swallow her up whole. It makes her stomach feel like it's on fire, and she shakily turns the key in the lock, opening the door and taking a step into her apartment.

When she turns back to tell him goodbye, he leans in and gives her one last kiss, drastically chaste in comparison to the one they just shared, and leaves without another word.

She shuts the door behind her, thumb brushing over her bottom lip as she throws her bag onto the table next to her. She flops onto her bed, and lets out a girly squeal into the mattress.

She loves this. She loves her own room in her own apartment, with her new boyfriend and her job. Finally, she's happy. And it's an enormous relief.

* * *


	22. Want

They're sitting on a park bench during his lunch hour. She warms her fingers around the hot cup of coffee, watching her feet swing back and forth, occasionally bumping against his. He's talking about some project they're trying to launch in District 4, a new railroad, maybe? She nods, but she can't seem to pay attention.

They're great.  _He's_ great. In the beginning (after the whole cinematic re-meeting and argument in the coffee shop, that is), she could forget everything that had happened between them, and he was just a great guy she was dating. But as the midnight conversations piled up, it became harder and harder not to let old wounds reopen. She was attached to him again.

She studied his face, tracing over his firm lips and strong jaw, animated stormy gray eyes. There was a faint scar across the top of his right temple to the middle of his forehead. That was new.

There were lots of unanswered questions and unsolved conflicts, just barely under the surface. He  _broke up with her_  for  _Katniss._ She stole pain medication when he was close to death. He abandoned her in her burning house and she watched her father burn. He overthrew a government and she changed her name and killed her old identity. He was the only person who still called her Madge, and she couldn't bring herself to tell him that her name was May now.

"You want to be with me, right?" She suddenly blurts out. She flinches at her words. He freezes in the middle of his sentence.

"What?" He's startled, reeling back. She stares at the ground. "How could you even ask me that? Of course I want to be with you."

She bites the inside of her cheek.  _Now's the time._  She thinks to herself. _Ask him._ She knows they can never move forward if she doesn't get this out in the open, however hard it is.

"Why did you break up with me?" The words are painful to say, but they release her. "Things were going so well, I started to feel real things for you, and then you just left me. Why?"

He shifts back farther away from her. Her fingers itch to grab his shirt, pull her back closer to her.

"We didn't work." He says cryptically, and she fights the urge to shove him.

"Please don't  _do_  that."

"What?"

"Shut down. Move away from me, never tell me what you're actually thinking." She tries to swallow the lump rising in the back of her throat, but she doesn't have the strength. She studies his face, the way it's retreated back into the carefully controlled blank stare. She hates that expression.

"I  _care_  about you." She tells him, watching the words settle onto his chest. He stares at something behind her in the distance mutedly.

There's a long pause of them just sitting in tight silence. Despair and anger bubbles in her stomach, and just as she finally stands up and turns to leave, his fingers catch her wrist.

He starts softly.

"You were the Mayor's daughter, you had breakfast, lunch, and dinner handed to you on a silver platter, and I tracked coal dust through your living room every time I came over. And I heard what your father said. About me... and money. And I realized that it was crazy, that we could never actually work, that I shouldn't be with you."

The explanation crashes over her and her mouth falls open. All that time she'd spent obsessing and analyzing over his words,  _her_ words, her actions all leading up until the day they ended. None of the possible reasons she'd come up with were along the lines of  _this._

"Because of something my father  _said_? Gale, that's so stupid!"

He shakes his head vigorously. "It's not. If he chose to, he could have given me to the Peace Keepers, and you know where I'd be? Prison. Or  _dead_. I had my family to think about."

She pauses for a minute, tries to understand his side of things. Yes, she'd been aware that they'd been in different positions in District 12. And she could admit it now, some of the things her father had said that fateful afternoon had had thin linings of truth in them. But they could have made it work. If he'd only...

"Why... why didn't you just tell me that?"

He half-smiles at her humorlessly. "You would've tried to fight me on it."

"Yeah, I would have." She drops her eyes, twists her fingers around each other nervously. "I thought you broke up with me for Katniss."

"No."

"But you love her."

"Lov _ed_. In a different way. It's complicated." It stings a little to hear the truth she already knew actually said out loud, but she's happy he didn't lie. He takes her hands earnestly, searches her eyes for something.

"I want  _you_ , ok? I do. When I'm with you, I'm not thinking about anyone else."

"Ok." She forces out. But he catches her chin, tilts her head up so he can look her in the eyes. And she melts.

 

* * *

 

He almost expects their talk to ruin everything. His honesties hurt to admit, and the picking at old wounds was more painful than he'd imagined.

But it doesn't. They move past it.

She meets him outside his building after work, and they walk around, grab some dinner, talk about their days. Or sometimes Madge cooks. It's so... normal. Stable.

He's never felt this safe. And cared for.

They walk down the wide city streets, passing other couples and families and friends in their path. The night is chilly, but bearable, and he'd used to the cold. Madge shivers a little next to him, and he gives her his jacket. She smiles sweetly and appreciatively, and he feels himself unabashedly grin.

They get to his apartment, where Madge throws her bag down on the barely-used couch in the main room familiarly. She ends up sleeping here most nights, because they both sleep better together (without her next to him, the bed's too cold and he can't smell her skin and feel the ends of her hair tickle his face).

Before she even takes off his jacket, she suddenly shoves him against the closed door.

"M - "

And she kisses him, lips soft but hard and unafraid against his. The way her tongue licks into his mouth says  _I want you_ , and it makes his stomach tighten.

Though she does sleep in his bed tucked against his chest more often than not, they haven't gone farther than some heavy making-out and some harmless grinding. Neither has really made a move for more before now.

But she in't scared anymore. Her questions are answered. And she understands (finally) how he feels about her, that he cares, and that she isn't going to end up heartbroken and crushed again. She believes him.

And she is wearing his jacket, and holding her hand and his hair is just the tiniest bit mussed in the back, the way that makes her fingers desperately itch to run through it.

So she grips his shoulders, pulling herself up to his face and balancing on the balls of her feet. After he catches up, his hands take hold of her hips and switch their positions, pulling her backwards away from the wall. They stumble blindly through the apartment, knocking a chair over in the process.

He stops when they get right outside the bedroom, pushing her against the wall and kissing down her jaw.

Besides himself, she's been the only person in his bed. The few women he'd been with had always picked him up, taken him back to theirs. A faceless woman with a body. And he'd slipped out before they woke up the next morning, always half disgusted with himself.

This is going to be different. She is  _Madge_ , and he loves her.

He's looking in her eyes, blue, blue eyes and it's like he's tripping and falling and he can't find his footing. It's terrifying. She's swallowing him up, there's nothing else, it's just her.

Yeah. He loves her.

His lips suck almost angrily at the skin below her earlobe and her fingers dig into his shoulder blades. Her back is flat against the wall, every curve of hers pressing into his hard frame. He takes her scent in, thinks about -

Suddenly, a red flag goes up in the forefront of his mind.

"I have a - " He takes a deep, steadying breath, hands still on her shoulders, as if he's "Well, it's sort of personal question."

"What is it?" She asks impatiently, shrugging off his jacket and dropping it to the floor.

"Are you - are you a virgin?"

Everything comes screeching to a stop.

She  _is_ still a virgin, and all of a sudden she hates that fact. Admitting it will make him see her as naive again. He'll see her as that little girl getting all hot and bothered making out under the tree outside her house. She's not the mayor's sheltered, spoiled daughter. She's not a little girl anymore.

But she doesn't want to lie to him, so she nods her head.

There's a thick pause.

"Don't look at me like that." She snaps suddenly, and he noticeably flinches.

He looks earnestly confused when he replies, "Like what?"

"Like I'm fragile. Breakable. I'm not."

Instead of answering aloud, he just traps her between the wall and himself, her back hitting the cold, metal surface hard. His lips kiss hers harshly - bruising - to tell her that he knows she isn't.

It takes her a second to catch up, but she does, gripping his shoulders. Her fingers quickly slide up to disappear in his dark, soft hair, to tangle in it. His chest presses against hers completely.

She's suddenly hyper-aware of his cock pressing against her. She supposes it should startle her, but it only makes her want to unabashedly rub against him.

So she throws a leg around his waist. He catches it, his grip squeezing her thigh, and he pushes himself up against her. She shivers at the contact, red hot snakes of pleasure shooting up from her stomach. She grinds into him just the tiniest bit, and smiles against his lips when his hips jerk into her because of it.

Noticing his clothed chest, she starts to unbutton his shirt clumsily, finally just ripping open the last two. She runs her fingers down his chest and stomach, taut and muscled and tan. Then back up to his broad shoulders, pushing the material off.

Suddenly, he hoists both her legs up around his waist, making her yelp. He carries her into the bedroom, kicking the door closed with his heel and dropping her on his bed and climbing on top, sinking down between her thighs, his knuckles brushing against her calf.

His mouth is all over, making more marks behind her ear, on the corner of her jaw, on her collarbone, nudging her face around so he can kiss her until she's sighing into his mouth.

His hands have awkwardly hiked up her dress, but he seems reluctant to take it off.

So she silently sits up, lightly pushing him off, twisting to get to the zipper in the back. For a second, he looks guilty, like he's done something completely wrong, but that expression vanishes when she pulls the fabric over her head, leaving her in just a bra and panties.

She folds into herself instinctually against the sudden chill.

But she looks up to meet his eyes, the way that he's looking at her like she's this radiant, beautiful thing that he's just seeing for the first time. He slowly moves back to his previous position, his hands warm and gentle on her skin.

He goes back to kissing her, slow and sweet at first, but quickly speeds up as his touch roves over newly exposed flesh and she's finally completely under him.

His stubble scrapes against her chin and cheeks, like a burn, she moans when his hand slides down her back and over her ass, taking a handful and hitching her closer. He pushes a thigh between her legs, tangling them together and her heart is beating too fast. She shudders at how good it feels when she rubs herself against it.

He groans low in his throat, and she echoes it with a breathy sigh.

She realizes that he's still wearing pants, and her left hand jumps down to unbutton them, and starts to push them down his hips.

His head spins as she helps him get his pants off. He has to hold back from not fucking her into the mattress. The old familiar hunger in the pit of his stomach is back, roaring angrily.

His hands travel up her stomach to her chest, moving up until they're cupping her breasts. She squeezes her eyes shut and her nails scrape against his bare shoulder blades, scrabbling for something to hold onto. He unhooks her bra, tossing it off behind him, and she bites her lip hard when his fingertips brush over her breasts.

He drags his tongue flatly up her stomach and then back in between her breasts, thumbing both her nipples. Her skin is so soft and feels so good against his mouth - he wants to devour her.

She makes an embarrassingly eager sound, and it shoots straight to his cock.

His fingers press against her through her underwear. He carefully asks, "Is this ok?"

"Yes!"

It comes out much more pleadingly than she means it to. But she doesn't have time to be embarrassed, because his mouth is on her collarbone again. He slips a finger up into her, and her breath catches and she can't hold back the gasp. Then another finger, and he's pushing in and out of her in a steady rhythm, and his thumb rubs circles around her clit.

He chews painfully on his bottom lip trying to ignore how great she feels, and the way he's aching to be inside her.

He crooks his fingers and she groans huskily, grabbing the back of his head roughly and bringing his lips down to hers.

Her hand ghosts over his erection - just a pass to see what happens. He chokes on air and his fingers freeze she starts to draw back her hand in alarm. He stops her, muttering a, "Sorry, keep going."

She dips her hand back down, and explores the hard, hot length of him. He keeps making all these  _sounds_ , and she revels in the fact that she's the cause of them. They're beautiful. She's making his shoulders cave and shudder.

His breath is hot and comes in jagged exhales against her neck. And his fingers start to move again.

They don't let up for a second, curling into her again and again, until she's fucking up against his hand and god, if it isn't the sexiest thing he's seen in his entire life.

"Gale I - " She suddenly takes her hand off of his cock and grasps his wrist, and he stills.

He gulps, forcing himself not to whine from the loss of contact. "What?"

"I - I want to have sex." She looks up at him through half-lidded bedroom eyes. 

It's a miracle he doesn't cum right then. Instead, he settles with a strangled noise in the back of his throat, the sliver of his rational mind still functioning at this point yelling at him to be responsible.

"Are you - ?"

"I had the shot this month." She says quickly, and before he has a chance to say anything else, she's back to kissing him.

It's a little awkward with the positioning, but it's resolved quickly enough.

He grits his teeth and sinks into her excruciatingly slow, hearing her breath catching in her throat loudly. He's forcing himself to be patient and gentle, when really all he wants to do is pound into her and hear her scream. But he waits a moment, biting his tongue, and studies her face carefully.

She feels stretched, but she doesn't bleed like Delly said she did the first time. It's hurt - but a good kind of hurt. His eyes meet hers, and he seems to be looking for some go-ahead, so she does a half-roll of her hips to spur him on.

It does.

She's rewarded with the way he groans loudly when she does it. He's got one hand next to her middle, propping himself up, while the other holds onto her hip so hard she's sure she's going to have bruises from each one of his fingers.

Her heartbeat pounds in her ears, and she opens her eyes briefly because she's curious. Even though it's sort of awkward and the back of her neck is starting to hurt a little, she's distracted from all that by how  _good_ he looks and feels. His face covered by a sheen of sweat, and he blinks his eyes open and he's staring down at her in that intense way that never failed to consume her.

His mouth slackly open, breathing in short, hot pants, a tiny crease between his eyebrows, and a tiny piece of hair sticking to the sweat on his forehead. All of a sudden, he looks determined, and his hand jumps down from her cheek to her clit, rubbing circles with his thumb, making her literally scream out loud.

It's like nothing she's ever felt before. He never misses a thrust, and her chest is heaving and she can't feel her fingers.

Her toes curl and she jerks her hips against him, making their hipbones clack together briefly as she comes.

He gets in a few shallow thrusts before he comes with a shout, vision whiting out and making all his bones feel like jelly.

He collapses on top of her, sweat-slick skin sliding against hers as he rolls off and onto the bed next to her. She feels cold without him covering her.

But then he's back, turning her onto her side and pulling her back flush against his chest in a protective spoon. She's exhausted and giddy all at the same time, and the last thing she remembers before she falls asleep is Gale pressing his lips softly against the back of her neck.


End file.
